Familial Affection
by Idday
Summary: And sometimes, families are more trouble than they are worth. The people of Panem know this all too well. A series of canon-compliant stories about the children of Panem and the families they live with: Peeta, Cato, Madge, Prim, and more.
1. Peeta

**As things are now, this is intended to be a series of unconnected oneshots, all compliant with the three books. These things have either been mentioned or could have happened, but have not been fully explored or explained. They will all deal mainly with the relationship of parents and children.**

**If you have any ideas or characters that you would like me to write on, please let me know. I will take your suggestion into consideration, but please remember that I am only writing events that could have happened in Collins' world.**

**I do not own any characters or ideas relating to the _Hunger Games _series. These all belong to Suzanne Collins and her publishers.**

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><p>The heat from the fires is comforting, and the smell of warm bread.<p>

It's nice being inside on a day when nobody in the world would want to be outside. The rain falls steadily past the open door, just cold enough to make the kitchen comfortable instead of sweltering.

I'm grateful for the rain.

The rhythm of the bread in my hands is steady, mindless. _Press, turn, fold. Press, turn, fold._ I look out the window, lost in my thoughts and the steadiness of bread and rain.

A flicker at the corner of my vision. My breath catches. It's _her_.

Blushing, though nobody saw me looking, I turn back to the bread, placing it carefully in the pan and carrying it over to the warm pocket of air behind the door to rise. I'm so distracted that I almost trip, and my mother glares sharply.

"Sorry, Mother," I say, "It won't happen again."

She just presses her lips together and turns towards the counter again, though there have been few customers on a day like today. I try to tell myself that it is only this lack of business that is making my mother short tempered. I don't quite believe myself.

I reflour the counter and start on kneading a fresh piece of dough, gradually working up the courage to look out of the window again. I don't know why this requires such courage, since she'll never know, but it does. A quick glance up. Yes, she's still there. Another glance. She's… looking through the trash can?

Oh, no. Anything but that. I feel myself stop breathing, and my heart rate doubles. I look back down at the bread quickly, hoping my mother won't have noticed what attracted my gaze outside the window. _Move, _I feel like shouting, _move, move, move…_

It's too late. My mother turns to check our progress, my brothers and mine, catches sight of the girl outside of the window, and stalks off out the door. My hands stop moving of their own accord, and I follow her to the door, peering around her.

"Peeta?" My father's voice, soft and concerned. He looks out the window and bites his lip. He recognizes her, too, and I think it's painful for him. In another universe, she could have been his daughter. We can't hear what my mother's shouting, but it sounds vicious. "Why don't you take the bread out of the oven," he says softly, "I'll finish here."

I nod. I can't see out the window from the oven. I catch my eldest brother's eye as I take up the paddle. He presses his lips together and looks down, kneading his own bread much harder than necessary.

Mother comes back into the bakery, grumbling under her breath. I try not to think about how thin the girl outside looks, how desperate. How unnecessary it was for Mother to yell at her, for we all know very well the bins were just cleaned. I take up the paddle and slide it under the first loaf, spinning and placing it on the cooling rack. Another, another. This is what I love about the bakery. The repetition, the comforting routines.

"Peeta!" My mother screeches, "You're meant to be kneading!"

"I told him to tend the ovens," Father says in my defense. Still, my hands tremble. I hate being yelled at. I hate that my own mother hates me. I hate that I can't feed a starving girl. Unless…

A quick glance out the window shows that she's still there, collapsed under the tree. A glance into the oven. The only bread left is the two loaves at the very back, too close to the flames…

I reach the long handled paddle all the way to the back. It touches the first loaf, slides under it. After a slight moment of hesitation, I twitch the paddle. Instead of sliding the loaf out, I slide it back, into the open flames. I push the second one to meet it. Just for a moment, just long enough to scorch without destroying. I pull them out quickly, blackened and unusable. Except to somebody who is starving.

"You idiotic boy!" My mother yells, right in my ear. She snatches the paddle out of my hand, and I brace myself for the blow. It comes, a hard strike across the cheek with the handle. I hear buzzing in my ear, my vision swims. I clutch desperately for something solid, grasp the end of the table. Nobody moves.

"It's ruined!" She shouts finally, defending herself against my father's horrified look and shoving the loaves at me, "you've destroyed perfectly good bread!"

She shoves both loaves into my hands. They burn, but I barely notice. Still yielding the paddle, she swats me with it, driving me out into the rain to escape her blows.

"Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature!" She yells after me, "Why not? No one decent will buy burnt bread!"

I can feel her gaze on my back and I dare not move towards the girl. I stand at the trough, breaking off as little of the bread as I possibly can while removing the black bits.

_Leave! _I think desperately, _Leave, mother, leave!_

A tinkling. The bell. She's gone.

I risk a glance back. Sure enough, she no longer stands in the doorway.

Quickly, I lob one loaf of the bread towards the girl, then the other. Then I spin, rushing back to the bakery through the mud, closing the door firmly behind me. Another barrier between her and my mother.

My father and brothers look up when I come in. I'm freezing from the rain, but I don't mind. I feel triumphant.

I catch my father's eye, and he winks. My brothers both shoot me sly smiles.

They won't tell my mother. It's a secret agreement we've had for years, one that has saved us from a multitude of punishments. If it's not crucial for her to know, we don't tell my mother.

"Peeta," says my father, "Why don't you run a bath. You'll catch your death from that rain."

I do, trying not to think about the girl in the rain. The one that, though I've had no interaction with other than this, I know that I'm desperately in love with her.

I sigh. There is no hope for me. Everybody's in love with Katniss Everdeen.


	2. Cato

**Those of you who have read this chapter before may notice that it has been edited. Though I usually write based on the way I see the books, but after reading several Cato/Clove fics, I realized that I was quite harsh, too harsh, in the way I portrayed Clove, especially considering that Cato was seemingly distraught at her death.**

**I've also been to see the movie by now, and I have to say that although Clove was not the way I pictured her from the books, I absolutely loved the way they portrayed her, and I when I changed the few bits that had her in them, I tried to take that portrayal into account. **

**I like this version much better, and I hope that it is well recieved.**

**I, of course, am not affiliated with the Hunger Games in any way, and it is the creation of Suzanne Collins, not me.**

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><p>I should be excited.<p>

This is the day I've been waiting for my whole life.

I'm finally ready.

Still, since in all likelihood, I'm marching to my own death, it's hard to be too happy.

But I don't let my parents see that.

They smile at me over breakfast, acting as if they haven't doomed their own son. Acting as if they haven't raised him to kill or die. Acting as if they care.

I hate them for it.

Aurelia catches my eye as I sit. Only she looks sad.

Actually, she looks terrified.

I catch her hand as I sit, and give it a squeeze. She's trembling.

My poor sister. She's the only one in this family that I can tolerate, and I'll never see her again.

Well, I might, I suppose. I'm supposed to be the victor. I've been trained. But I've been studying these games for years, and anything can happen. I've been trying to improve my odds, but in all reality, they're still only 1 in 24.

Mathematically speaking, that's dismal.

I've always been good at math.

Aurelia is shaking like a leaf, so nervous that she can't eat. Not that my parents notice. Not that they really care about her. She's a girl, after all, and the youngest, though she could still bring them honor.

In four years, when she's eighteen, she'll be expected to go. No matter what happens to me. They'll sacrifice another child to the Capitol for glory.

In this way, they're worse than the Capitol. The Capitol sacrifices unknown faces. Horrible, yes, but not unnatural. The parents of Two sacrifice their own young.

I try to imagine other houses around the country. In some, people are eating breakfasts like mine. One, Two, Four. Monsters disguised as children. In some, people are scared. Three, Seven, Nine. Children with a chance. In some, the people won't even look at each other, for fear of dooming children unintentionally. Eleven, Twelve. Children just counting the seconds until they fall into their coffins.

The reaping in Two is early, and we leave right after breakfast. Too soon. The day flashes by, though I want it to stop.

We reach the square and separate, my parents lining the square with the other adults, Aurelia and I filing in to take our places. I have a front row place this year. I start to walk to it, but Aurelia tugs my hand.

He eyes are filled with tears.

"You'll be fine," I say, pulling her into a hard hug, memorizing the feel of her slight body against mine. This is what I'll miss. This is what I love. "I'll be fine," I lie.

She stands on her tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek. She can barely reach.

"I love you, Cato," she whispers, and moves to stand in the back with the rest of the fourteen-year-olds.

_I love you, _I think, but don't say.

She could be reaped, theoretically. It's possible. But she won't be in the Games, not this year. Somebody will volunteer. In Two, it's understood that only an eighteen-year-old will be tribute. If anyone else is reaped, an eighteen-year-old will volunteer. Most years, it's known who will volunteer before the reaping even starts. This year, it's me.

Who will volunteer for Aurelia, if she's called? Probably Clove, even though she's young to go. Helena or Flavia could volunteer as well. I catch Clove's eye, and she smirks. We're not friends, but she's as close as I've got. People think we're more, but it's not true. She's pretty enough, but she's too much like me. She lusts for blood.

I hate this about myself, but I'm unable to stop it. I don't want to be vicious. I don't want to kill. I tell myself I won't, and yet every time I enter the training center, the bloodlust takes me. I just can't stop.

District Two's escort minces up to the stage, a plump woman with pink braids and electric green eyes. She was pretty, once. She's got one of the best jobs, too, since District 2 always has volunteers, many of whom win. This is a high position, and she's held it for years.

"Haloo!" She trills above the murmur of the crowd, and it quickly silences. "Welcome to the Reaping! Let's begin!" She reminds me of a teacher at school, but she doesn't ask if everybody's here. It's a pointless question. Even if it weren't mandatory, nobody in Two would miss the Reaping. It's the best excitement we get all year.

The mayor steps forward and reads the history of Panem. I know it so well by now I could almost recite it along with him. I do, under my breath, just to amuse myself. The boy on my left glares at me. Fine. Let him volunteer.

For just a moment, I entertain the fantasy of _not_ volunteering. Perhaps I won't. Why should I? Shouldn't I let the game of chance be played? But quickly, I drop the idea. I can't doom someone innocent to die in the arena when I have a much better chance. Besides, my parents would be impossible to live with.

The mayor steps back, Esmeralda, the escort, steps forward.

"Ladies First!" She chirps.

She reaches her hand in, and though I know it's pointless, my heart starts beating faster. What if it _is_ Aurelia? What if nobody volunteers? What if she dies?

"Maya Yorrel," Esmeralda calls into the microphone. Who is Maya Yorrel? I've never heard of her.

A slight, dark skinned girl steps out of the fifteen-year-old section and walk hesitantly forward. _Isn't anybody going to volunteer?_ I can practically hear her thinking.

It must feel like eternity, but it's really only a couple seconds, before Clove's hand shoots up.

"I volunteer!" She calls. Helena, who's hand was only seconds behind Clove's, doesn't contest this decision. She looks secretly relieved. I would be.

I glance down the row of eighteen year olds again. Would anybody volunteer, if I was slow enough? If I waited the extra three seconds? Probably not.

Esmeralda minces over to the boy's ball, and reaches a hand inside. She winks at the audience as she clutches for a slip. As though it's going to matter who she pulls. As though they're going. Unless it's me, which would be ironic.

She plucks one and steps back to the microphone. "Marcus Greenburg!" She calls.

A second. A hesitation. I catch my father's eye, and he makes a forward motion with his hand. I turn and look at Aurelia. She's pale, though I can't tell whether it's due to me or because Marcus is her best friend. Damn. Now I have to volunteer. She'd never forgive me if I let Marcus go.

Time must slow down, for I see all of these things before Marcus takes a step.

"I volunteer!" I shout, lunging out of line before I can even raise my hand.

Esmeralda smiles at my enthusiasm and motions me up onto stage, where I shake Clove's hand. She holds on for longer than necessary, meeting my eyes. Only one of us comes out, and we're both planning on being that one, regardless of whatever resemblance our relationship holds to friendship.

Now time speeds up again. The visiting hour rushes by. My parents congratulate me loudly, as if they'll see me again tomorrow. Aurelia climbs up into my lap, which she hasn't done in years, and sobs into my shirt. I shush her, absorbing her warmth, her weight, her smell, ignoring my parents.

At the last possible second, she slips her locket off of her neck and onto mine. It's the one I gave her for her tenth birthday, and it has our pictures in it, side by side.

"Wear this?" She asks. As if I would say no. It may be feminine, but I don't care. It's precious.

I don't cry, though I want to when Aurelia clings to me for a moment too long, when a Peacekeeper seizes her waist and drags her off, screaming for me.

I board the train with Clove. Somewhere, buried beneath her smirk, I see the fear in her dark eyes. I suspect mine is visible beneath my cockiness, but neither of us mentions it.

"Families are annoying," She says at dinner. "If I'd behaved like that when my brother went, I would have been ashamed of myself. I'm so glad we can finally leave it all behind and have a real adventure, aren't you?"

She obviously saw me saying goodbye to Aurelia. I roll my eyes, but stay silent. Kindness has never been her strong suit. Besides, her brother, the tribute from two years ago, came back.

We watch the recaps from the day, and Clove makes snarky comments about each tribute. I don't say a word.

My volunteering comes towards the beginning, and I'm relieved to see that I don't look hesitant on film. Hopefully my parents won't give me a hard time if I come back. _When_ I come back.

By the time Twelve rolls around, Clove is bored, playing with the ends of her hair. I'm not. The pair from Eleven caught my attention. The boy, even bigger than I am. He had a sister, too, they show her in the crowd. It makes me wonder about Aurelia. The girl, tiny, who looks barely old enough to be eligible. I feel a stab of injustice. At least in Two, we don't make twelve-year-olds go. We only sent those with a real shot. Somebody should have volunteered for her. It's only right.

"She'll be easy," Clove says, but she looks slightly guilty for saying it. "We can pick her off right away."

I feel the anger, the bloodlust coming on, but I fight to control it. Analytically, I know that she will be easy, barely a threat at all, and I long to remove her from the game, but I don't want to kill that child.

They call a twelve-year-old in Twelve, too. Small, blonde, scared looking. But within seconds, another girl has stepped forward. They don't look terribly similar, but it's clear that they're sisters, even before the escort from Twelve says so. A boy drags the young one off, screaming her sister's name. The scene is too familiar, and I picture my own sister's face.

"How touching," Clove snorts.

The boy from twelve is unremarkable, but I keep thinking about the girls. The sisters. Would I have hesitated if it had been Aurelia? If I had been a girl, or she a boy, and I was able to take her place? No. My reaction would have been immediate and desperate. Just like Twelve's.

Clove turns the set off, and slumps back into the couch. "We'll be there tomorrow," she remarks, unnecessarily. I nod.

She smirks over at me. "I bet they'll like the strong and silent type," she whispers in my ear, moving her hands to my biceps and squeezing. She winks lavaciously, but I know she's joking.

"I wouldn't call you strong," I quip, standing, though she may be the strongest person I know. "You're certainly not silent."

I hear her laugh a little as I leave and the sound makes me smile for the first time all day.

I move back to my compartment and collapse in bed. I don't want to think about my parents, or I'll punch something. I don't want to think about Aurelia, or I'll cry, which is unacceptable. I don't want to think about _anything_. I want to sleep, so heavily that I'll wake up not knowing where I am.

This doesn't happen, of course. Instead, I think about the tribute from Twelve and her little sister.

Maybe we have more in common that either of us thinks.


	3. Madge

I push through the storm, hands feeling suddenly light and cold without the weight of the morphling in them.

I want to cry, but the tears would just freeze on my cheeks. Besides, I hardly have the right to cry. If anyone does, it's Gale. But he won't, of course.

I half wonder why I did it, and I half know.

I half did it to help him, _him. _I half did it out of pure spite. Spite for the stupid peacekeepers and their stupid uniforms, too white to represent blood. Spite for the stupid laws. Spite for the stupid medicine. Let it find a good home. Let it do some good.

I'm home now, and my hands are so cold that I can barely clench my fingers enough to turn the door knob. I have no story drawn up. I haven't a clue what I'll say if someone asks me where I've been. Maybe I'll tell them the truth.

The entryway is silent.

"Hello?" I call tentatively. There is no answer.

I start to snort derisively, but the sound sounds unnaturally loud in the silent house, and I stop myself quickly. I don't know why it still stings that I'm the only one here. I've expected it for years.

I'm always alone.

Numbly, unfeelingly, I unwrap my scarf and hang it and my coat on the rack. I had half expected our housekeeper to be here, but she probably didn't come today. And there's no garden to tend in the wintertime.

Softly, just as I always step on the stairs for fear of waking her, I climb towards my bedroom. On the way, I crack my mother's door and peer inside. It's dark, and stuffy, and she's immobile, as always. She doesn't notice me. She almost never does. She didn't notice before, when I crept in to take a box of morpling.

_They're my mother's. She said I could take them._

It was only half a lie. She didn't say I could take them. I didn't ask. She'll never notice they were gone, though. I can see three more boxes from where I stand, and there's at least as much morphling stockpiled at my father's office, in case one or the other of the stashes is confiscated.

I close my mother's door before she can notice me and slink into my own bedroom, closing the door firmly and collapsing on my own bed.

I'm angry, though I don't know quite why.

I think of my father, working away at the Justice Building, and I feel a surge of hot, sticky fury. What's the point of him being mayor if he doesn't _do_ anything? Couldn't he stop them, those awful peacekeepers?

Rationally, I know he has little, if any, control over them, but I feel like being angry at anybody for any reason right now.

And my mother, my useless mother. I understand about the headaches, I pity her those. I can even understand her addiction to the morphling, disgusting though it is. But how long has it been since she's spoken to me? Weeks? Months? How long since she called me by my name, and not Maysilee's? How long since this case of mistaken identity has triggered another of her headaches? It's gotten worse as I've gotten older. More and more, I stay out of her way so I can't be her ghost.

I hate her for being weak.

I hate myself for causing her pain.

And the morphling, all of the morphling. The secret shipments from the Capitol, the massive amounts of money my father pours into the habit. It's the only thing that can stop the pain. I understand this, of course. But she seems to need more and more, and costs are rising.

It was fitting that Gale should have it. The strongest man I know, the only one in this wretched place who could free us from this political prison. The one who will, given the chance. It's pathetic that I care, when we've exchanged not a word since the day of the reaping last year. Sometimes, though, I would catch his gaze at school and fool myself into thinking that we were in solidarity with each other. We were both sitting a vigil for Katniss.

Gale will use the morphling to recover, to become strong and help our world. I don't have to know him well to know that he has tendencies towards rebellion. I probably know more about him than I should, but he fascinates me. I only feel slightly guilty for eagerly collecting bits of information about the boy that I barely know.

My mother, on the other hand, would only use the morpling to hide from the world, to sink deeper into her addiction and depression. I haven't seen her in direct light for months, but I suspect that she's become yellow looking and fragile. I hate looking at morphling addicts. It's like looking into my mother's face.

It's not as if she's had a hard life, not really. She's the richest woman in the District. Hundreds of people have lost relatives to the Games, and they've picked themselves up, moved on somehow. But then, I've heard the bond between twins is different.

I sit up and cross to the window. The landscape is still obscured by swirling white snow, but I imagine that I can see to Victor's Village, to the Everdeen's new house. I imagine Gale there. Is he on the couch, perhaps? On a bed, or a bench? I hope that the morphling has made him comfortable.

I imagine Katniss at his side, smoothing his hair, holding his hand. I imaging Peeta looking on, sad but understanding. Too understanding. I can commiserate, with both him and Gale. I know something about unrequited love.

I turn my head toward the west. Somewhere, thousands of miles away, the Capitol lays, knowing of our misery and laughing at it. Someday, there will be a new Capitol, a better one.

Suddenly, I am determined to help it be.

It's wrong that Gale was whipped. It's wrong that my mother watched her twin's murder. It's wrong that my father has no control in his own District. It's wrong that Katniss gets a fancy house as a reward for slaughtering children, and it's wrong that Peeta was forced to do so. It's wrong that Prim knew, even for a second, the terror of certain death.

I'm angry, but this time, I know where my anger's directed. Not at my father or my mother. Not at the peacekeepers. I'll be angry at the Capitol, and I won't stop being angry until it falls.

Gale is angry. That's his strength.

Katniss is angry. That's her secret.

Haymitch is angry. That's his pain.

Peeta is angry. That's his surprise.

I'll be angry. It will be my power.

I will be more powerful than the Capitol. I certainly have more anger.


	4. Prim

**The idea for this one came from a reviewer, JAStheSPAZZrocks. At first, I was dubious, because Prim had never been presented as being in conflict with her mother, and she had always seemed so sweet, almost too perfect.**

**But her mother is not the only parental figure in Prim's life, and sometimes the quietest souls have the most to say.**

**This could be considered a bit out of character, but since I'm staying entirely in her head, it's possible that she thought something like this, too. I think that sometimes, people get really angry at others, especially those they love, for doing something for them, even (or especially) when it was well intentioned. This is my take on that.**

**Besides, everybody wants to scream sometimes.**

**Once again, I do not own anything that was in the original books. I love reviews, and I welcome ideas for future character focuses, though I can't guarantee that I will use them.**

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><p>I'm not as weak as she thinks.<p>

I'm not as weak as any of them think.

And yet she, she is so much weaker than any of us can see.

I can see it in her eyes as she twirls in that ridiculous dress, jewels glimmering in the harsh lights of the stage, just a hint of hesitation, of sorrow. Of weakness.

My mother sits beside me, stiff. She's still here, though, which is something of an accomplishment for her. I know how badly she wants to escape to the bedroom, to collapse under the blankets and sleep herself into oblivion. She won't. She'll honor Katniss' last wish.

People always honor the dead.

Mother won't look at me, either. It's too painful. Her youngest daughter snatched from the jaws of death, only to have her oldest daughter walk willingly towards the beast. I can't look at her, either. Neither of them would admit it, but they share a great deal. I look at my mother, and see Katniss' cheekbones, her lithe body. Her steel. And I can't bear to see it when I won't see her again.

She made a sacrifice for me, a sacrifice of life. Sacrifice of the highest kind.

The memory still makes my blood boil.

Who is she to interfere with fate? Who is she to spite the Capitol? Who is she to go off and die?

Something churns deep in the pit of my stomach. Hunger, and anger. Hunger, for though Gale brings by game frequently, one hunter is simply not as prosperous as two. Besides, I haven't felt like eating in a week. The hunger is familiar. The anger is not.

I don't know exactly why I am angry with my sister. I should be sad, horrified. I am. But I'm angry, too.

Who is she to prefer death, when I don't have that option? Who is she to commit suicide, for that is what she did?

I'm not optimistic enough to pretend that I'll see my sister again. Only enough to pretend that someday, I won't wake up to hear my own screams echoing in my head, the ghost of Gale's arms locked around my waist, too tight, too hostile. More hostile in my dreams than they were in reality.

And who is he to conspire against me with her? He, who knows what she is to me? He, who has been the brother I've longed for?

It's as much as I can manage to smile at him when he brings me game, now. _Traitor._

Katniss doesn't understand that there are worse things than death. She doesn't understand the torture of watching a sister die. Or perhaps she does, and that is why she did it.

Selfish. She consigned herself to a quick death, yet I will be haunted for the rest of my days. Our fates should have been reversed. They would have been, in a just world, in a world where one girl did not think that she could thwart fate.

It is she who needs the protection, not I. The foolish always do.

Mother gasps, and the sound tears my thoughts away from Katniss. She does not deserve such censure, after all. She is a national hero for her compassion, for saving a tiny girl from death.

And I love her, too much. It is only my love that could ever make my anger so overwhelming. One can only be truly angry at somebody that they truly love.

Slowly, as if awaking from a dream, I look at my mother. She is gazing, open mouthed, at the television screen. The tears that shine in her eyes speak of triumph.

"Peeta," she says. "Oh, Prim, he'll get her home. He loves her—did you hear?"

He could have been my brother, once. Does she not remember how his father loved her?

Like father, like son.

But Katniss did promise she'd come home to me. She promised that she'd try. Katniss never breaks a promise.

But she promised that nothing would hurt me, once.

She lied.

I stand. "Bed," I whisper.

I can't bear to think of the twirling girl on the television. I can't bear to think of the real Katniss, who's ghost wanders the woods and the house before Katniss is even dead. I can't bear to think of tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the games begin.

Tomorrow, my sister dies.


	5. Cynthia

**This is probably the most far fetched of these one-shots, and I am the first to admit it. The whole idea stems from just one sentence in Mockingjay, so the rest is fiction/conjuncture, though I did try hard to make it plausible enough to fit in with the rest of the stories.**

**I will say, I don't really like the idea of Gale and Katniss together, so this has almost none of that, though Gale features prominantly. I do like the idea of Gale and Madge, but this story takes place in Mockingjay and is canon, and though I suppose there is always (as in some other stories I have read) the .0001% chance that Madge is alive, it is fairly clearly stated that she died in the destruction of District 12, and so she is, unfortunately, dead in this story. There are hints of a past relationship between her and Gale.**

**The ending to this story is also a little far fetched, perhaps, but I think Gale deserves a happy ending, just not with Katniss. I picture him with a girl who is maybe a just a little bit like both Katniss and Madge.**

**This is also a very long one-shot, since it covers all of Mockingjay and a bit after the book ends.**

**I am actually more pleased than I thought I might originally be with this story, and I hope you all like it as well. If you do, please send a review my way!**

**Sorry for the incredibly long author's note, but this one needs a bit of an opener.**

**I do not own the Hunger Games or anything affiliated with it.**

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><p>I wait until the Mansion is dark and quiet before I slip out of bed.<p>

I redress in a loose tunic and leggings, pulling on a soft pair of leather shoes that make my footsteps virtually inaudible and taking a small lamp from the bedside table.

As I light it, Diana stirs on her cot. I freeze, barely breathing, hyperconscious of the sound of my own heart, but she only sighs deeply and rolls over. I close my eyes briefly in relief. Diana is far too loyal to talk of my nighttime excursions, but it is dangerous for her to know of them, so I hide all I can from her.

I glance at the face of my watch before slipping it into my pocket: 1 o'clock. I must be back by five.

Noiselessly, I slip through the door and move through the plush residential quarter into the far starker servant's area. I use the lamp to guide my steps, but I know these halls so well, even in the pitch dark, that I hardly need it.

I pause in the kitchen, unsure of what I will need for tonight. Eventually I settle on filling a small bag with basic supplies, reminding myself that I can always return tomorrow night better equipped.

The next part of my journey is the most dangerous, but a combination of my name and my experience will almost certainly keep me safe.

I know that the last shift ends at ten, and I know that the night shift has only five guards on duty, one for each floor, all of whom stay inside of their offices unless an alarm has sounded. Most of the prisoners would be unable to escape even if their cells were left unlocked. They are too weak. Even the stronger ones have no hope of escape; the cells are simply impenetrable.

I've been sneaking down to the prisons almost every night now for five years, and I have yet to be caught. Even if I were, though, there is no way that I would suffer the fate of anyone else trying to break in: a chance to experience the prison for myself. Here in the Capitol, having Snow for a surname tends to make people look the other way.

The prisons are connected to the President's Mansion by a series of underground tunnels. Most of Panem thinks that they are two separate buildings, but the Mansion is connected to most important buildings in the Capitol by similar passages. They are cold, dark, and damp, but they are also convenient and clandestine.

I am halfway expecting security to be tighter tonight due to the disastrous ending of the Quarter Quell, but the guard has his office door tightly shut as usual, and I slip easily past.

I check cellblock C first, as this is where most of the newer arrivals are kept, but the cells are all empty, so I steal to cellblock D, which holds slightly larger cells, equipped with a cot and a table instead of just a mattress. I see them right away this time. Although they have been battered by their recent time in the arena, they still look remarkably healthy compared to the others in this prison.

Noiselessly, I slip my shoe off and remove the key from beneath its lining. I unlock the cell on the left first, wincing at the slight squeak the door makes as it swings just wide enough to admit me. Tomorrow night, I must bring oil.

He doesn't try to escape when I open the door. He's awake, but he doesn't speak to me either as I pull off my shoe again, replacing the key. When he does speak, it's a rasping whisper.

"Who are you?"

He doesn't sound worried. I'm obviously unarmed, and he's still strong, much bigger than I am.

I pull a roll of bread from my bag and hand it to him. He takes it and examines it, but he doesn't eat it. In all my years visiting prisoners in the dead of night, first pushing food through the small bars on the windows and later, after I had managed to steal and copy my Grandfather's master key, coming into the cells themselves, he is the only one who has asked me this question. Most are simply too grateful for the food or too resentful of me to bother. His question startles me, and I remain silent, shoving a hunk of cheese into his hands.

"Who are you?" He presses.

I remain silent for a moment, thinking quickly.

"Calypso," I finally lie. I have no doubt that he doesn't understand this reference. I am probably the only person in Panem who does, but it amuses me nonetheless. Calypso, the young maiden caring for a stranded man on his way home on a long journey. Though I have no intention of keeping him here. The Mansion has a massive collection of books banned to the public, considered too subversive and dangerous. Near the door are more innocent books: fairy tales, books like the _Odyssey_. Further down the walls are books written on poverty, on crime, and on the human condition. Buried in the back corner are the worst, because these books have been written on government, on revolution. These books are too valuable to destroy and too dangerous to allow, and they remain shut up in their library. District children only read school textbooks. Capitol citizens who might be allowed to read the more innocuous books simply aren't interested. I am the library's only regular visitor.

I don't ask for his name in exchange for mine, though I gave him a false one. Everyone in Panem knows who he is: Peeta Mellark, District 12 Victor, fiancé to the most famous girl in the country, Quarter Quell tribute, and as of yesterday, prisoner.

"Eat," I say, and he does. He must be hungry, for he takes great bites of the bread and cheese, barely chewing before he swallows.

He looks plaintively at me when he finishes, but the rest of the food is meant for Johanna Mason in the next cell over.

"Why are you here?"

This is the hardest question to answer, for I don't truly know myself. Probably because I detest the conditions these prisoners, many of them innocent, are kept in, partly because the Hunger Games make me sick, because I don't approve of our dictatorship, because I feel compassion for these people, because I must play a part in this revolution and my part will be played from the inside out.

"To keep you alive," I finally say.

He just nods.

"Peeta," I say urgently, "They're going to give you an interview. Soon."

"With Caesar?"

I nod. "President Snow needs you on his side. District 13 has Katniss, and so he needs you now more than ever."

He looks confused. He still doesn't know who I am, not really, and he must be wondering how I have this information.

"District 13?" He repeats.

"They exist," I say, remembering that this is not common knowledge, "They survive hidden underground."

"They took Katniss?"

"And Finnick, and Beetee." I stop, wondering how much more I can tell him without revealing my position. Grandfather tends to be too liberal in the information he gives me, so I often have information that only other high ranking government officials have.

Peeta doesn't even seem to notice. "They're alive?" He says urgently.

"For now," I reply.

"And the interview…"

"Is your chance to keep them that way," I finish. "You can't mention what I've told you here. But if the rebels loose, the punishments for them will be severe."

He closes his eyes. "Katniss…" He whispers, pushing a hand through his hair. "I have to keep her alive."

"I know," I say, "It won't be easy. You'll have to spin the story to make her look innocent. If the rebels loose, the Capitol may choose to be lenient, especially since the country thinks she is carrying your child."

"How do you know she's not?" He asks, but I ignore him.

"It will be dangerous for you, though. The rebels will think it's traitorous of you."

"I'll survive," He says brusquely, unconcernedly. "When's the interview?"

"Soon," I say again, and take out the key again. "I'll be back tomorrow night."

Then I slip out before he can say another word.

…

I don't wake until noon the next morning, when Diana comes in to summon me to lunch. I almost never wake earlier than this, but those who know of my sleeping habits assume that I'm a spoiled Capitol brat, not that I'm quietly conducting a nocturnal rebellion inside the President's Mansion.

"Am I eating with Grandfather today?" I ask Diana as she offers me my robe.

She nods, and as soon as I am seated at my vanity, she begins to brush my hair out.

"Is there anything else for the day?" I ask again as she smooths my hair back into a twist, letting the ends fall free and coiling them around her finger until they curl. She nods again, but doesn't say another word. I don't expect her to.

Diana is an Avox. She was Grandfather's gift to me on my tenth birthday. I was horrified by the gift, though I accepted her graciously, knowing that I would treat her kindly and expecting that a place with me would be better for the terrified girl, also just ten, than any other positions she could have received as an Avox.

Diana is my best—and only, really—friend, and I understand her well enough that her muteness doesn't matter. When she must say something that cannot be expressed by the simple code of movements that we've devised, she writes it.

She finishes with my hair and moves in front of me to apply makeup, sunlight glinting off of her hair. Diana is lovely, with straight, dark gold hair and deep blue eyes that look almost black in dim light.

I pull her into an affectionate hug when she finishes, and we move out into the hall towards the dining room, Diana walking the respectful two steps behind me. I do not insist on this formality when we are alone, but Diana understands even better than me the need to keep up appearances when we're among others. If she doesn't show me the proper respect, she could be severely punished.

She steps against the back wall of the dining room when we reach it, taking her place in a line of Avoxes waiting to serve us.

Grandfather has a cup of tea in his hand and is staring intently at the wall lined with fourteen televisions screens, showing what is playing at any given moment in each of the districts and the Capitol. The screens for District 12 and District 13 are conspicuously blank.

"Good morning, Cynthia," he says as I approach, and without removing his eyes from the screens, he extends his cheek to me. Carefully keeping my face neutral, I approach him and kiss it. He has a bloody handkerchief crumpled by his saucer, and the cloying scent of roses is thick in the air. I hurry to my own seat and catch Diana's eye, sending her to fetch a cup of tea for me.

"Good afternoon, Grandfather," I reply, and he looks sharply at me. My dissent has not escaped him. If he says that it's morning, I'm expected to agree with him. I lower my eyes demurely, but remain silent.

Diana slips a cup and saucer in front of me and steps back to the wall.

"I shall expect you to attend an event today, Cynthia," Grandfather says finally, breaking the silence.

I say nothing, for I am not expected to.

"A filming of an interview with Mr. Flickerman." He nods sharply at a pair of Avoxes stationed by the door, and moments later, lunch is set in front of us. As I've been taught, I respectfully wait until he's started eating before I do so. "His guest should be familiar to you, but you are not to interact with him."

"Yes, Grandfather." I do not ask who this guest is, but I already know. Somewhere in the prison, they are readying Peeta for his moment on camera.

"Mr. Flickerman's been asking about you recently. He hasn't seen you since you were about ten years old."

Almost nobody in Panem has seen me since I was about ten years old. When I was little, I went with grandfather almost everywhere. It's good publicity for a leader to have a child with him, especially a pretty little girl. People don't hate them as much.

I stopped making public appearances when I was ten, partly because I was becoming a gawky adolescent that Panem didn't want to see, partly because my tutor left that year and I had no one to prep me for these outings, and partly because I was old enough to put up a good resistance. Now, though, Grandfather is sending me a clear message: it is time for me to make a reappearance at his side. As a polished young women, I am once again useful for publicity. The country is being destroyed by civil war, and this war will clearly be won by young people: Katniss, Peeta, myself.

"The conference is in one hour, Cynthia. You will appear at your best." I nod mutely, and excuse myself from the room.

…

The press room is a small room tucked into a corner between the residential and the governmental quarters of the Mansion. Grandfather spent millions on the latest technology for set design, and the room can look like anything: his office, a bombed street, the ground at District 13. Right now, it is a perfect replica of Caesar Flickerman's interview set.

Caesar is dressed in his usual garish suit, with his hair and face still tinted lavender, as they were for the last games. He is not the only one that I recognize in the room—a few of Grandfather's officials are in attendance—but neither Grandfather nor Peeta have arrived, and the rest of the people in the room are crew members fiddling with their video equipment.

"Miss Snow!" Caesar calls delightedly when he catches sight of me, and hurries across the room to take my hand. I like Caesar; I have the sense that he genuinely cares for the tributes every year. He certainly tries hard to make the audience and potential sponsors like them, to give them a real shot at winning.

"Mr. Flickerman," I reply, smiling as I've been taught: Gracious and genuine, but still demure.

"Please, call me Caesar. My dear girl, it's been so long! Let me get a look at you!"

Diana has dressed me in deep purple and gold for the afternoon. My hair is still in its twist; pulled back from my face but falling down my back in its natural loose curls. Diana thinks I look striking, but I think I look overdone.

"I simply must see you more often!" Caesar fawns, "You've grown up to be such a ravishing beauty. The citizens would be in raptures over you; why in the world has your Grandfather kept you cloistered from the Capitol for so long?"

"For her own safety, I assure you," Grandfather says from behind me.

Caesar laughs and drops my hand immediately. "I hate to imagine the trouble all of her suitors must cause, vying for her attention," he says smoothly, but he sounds more nervous now than he did when we were alone.

There is a beat of silence before Caesar speaks again. "I'd best be off, last minute preparations. Perhaps I'll be interviewing you next, Miss Snow. I'm sure the Capitol would love to hear your thoughts on the rebellion."

There is no way that I'm letting Caesar interview me about the rebellion for several reasons, not the least of which is that I'm as much of a rebel as one can be in the Capitol without being killed and I doubt very much that Grandfather wants to hear this, but I make a noncommittal sound in the back of my throat and Caesar hurries away.

The door opens and Peeta walks through, chained at the wrists and ankles and flanked by two guards. He looks healthy, though, healthier even than he did last night. Grandfather must have ordered a Prep Team to see to him this morning. He glows with a body polish.

Peeta looks around the room nervously, eyes flicking from face to face. I'm tempted to turn aside so he doesn't recognize me, but Grandfather's still standing at my side and it would be terribly obvious, so I only hope that he won't recognize the plainly dressed girl with the food from last night in the dazzling debutante that stands by the President. His eyes meet mine for a split second, but his gaze moves quickly away. If he does recognize me, he doesn't betray either of us. But I've been watching him for two years now onscreen, and he's an expert at putting up a front.

The guards unshackle him and lead him to his chair, stepping off set just far enough that the cameras won't be able to see them.

Caesar takes his place next to Peeta, just a hint of something in his face as he looks at the boy. Sadness? Regret?

"Excuse me," Grandfather says smoothly, "I need a word with Mr. Mellark."

I don't know what Grandfather says to Peeta, but Peeta pales visibly. A moment later, Grandfather is back at my side and the cameras are rolling.

The cameras transform Peeta from a terrified prisoner to a confused victor, a concerned father-to-be, a passionate lover.

"He's good," I murmur.

Grandfather doesn't disagree. "Yes, he's very good. And he has a weakness. This is why we can use him."

He doesn't have to say what Peeta's weakness is. All of Panem already knows: Katniss Everdeen.

…

When I arrive at his cell tonight, he's up and waiting for me.

He waits impatiently while I lightly oil the hinges on the heavy door and let myself in, and he speaks as soon as I'm inside.

"Well?"

I take the food out of my bag and hand it to him, but he doesn't eat it right away.

"Is President Snow happy?" He presses.

I've never seen Grandfather happy. "He's… sated." I answer carefully.

"Has it aired?"

I watched a prescreening of the interview with Grandfather over my dinner; Peeta came off very well.

"Not yet," I answer.

"The rebels will be furious."

"Probably," I agree, "But they'll be alive."

Peeta's still sitting pensively on his cot with the food in his hands.

"You must eat that before the guards start patrolling again," I say urgently, "Or you'll be in terrible trouble."

I look around his small cell. Just the cot he's sitting on and a small table, which the lamp is on right now.

"You don't have cards," I say suddenly, remembering his interview.

_Why don't we ask the guards to take me back to my quarters so I can build another hundred card houses?_

He's been generous in his description. The word 'quarters' evokes an image of a place much more comfortable than this desolate cell with the white walls and the thick metal door, missile proof and sound proof with the exception of the small, barred window set into it.

"Yeah," He says bitterly, "I lied."

I turn to go, but he stops me again.

"Calypso," he calls. The name startles me. I had almost forgotten that I'd given him a fake name.

I turn back towards him.

"Thanks," he says, waving the bread, but he doesn't speak of the food. "For letting me know what's going on."

I only smile sadly at him, touched by his politeness, and leave before he can see the tears in my eyes.

…

Diana looks reproachfully at me the next day as she cleans the scratches on my hands.

"I must have scratched in my sleep," I say innocently. This is not entirely a lie. The three lines on the back of my hand are nail marks, unmistakably so. They aren't mine, however. Johanna Mason raked my hand fiercely with her nails as I handed her the bread last night. I don't think she likes me very much. She ate the food eagerly, but she laughed a little at the blood on my hand, the look in my eyes as I snatched my arm out of reach. Tonight, I'll just throw the food in from the doorway.

I have to wonder if the guards have been feeding them. They both look thinner and sicklier, but at least I don't believe that they've been tortured. Yet.

Diana sighs, but it's safer for her to believe me, so she only fetches my clothes for the night and sets about readying me for dinner, another meal with Grandfather.

I've had a shower earlier today, and my hair has dried into a tumble of curls: pretty, but unmanageable. Though she doesn't speak, Diana's frustration is palpable as she wrestles my hair into submission. She yanks harder than necessary as she twists the front back from my face. I think she's angry that I'm keeping secrets from her; she's not stupid, it's obvious that I didn't scratch my own hand. I hate leaving Diana out, but they could punish her if she knows where I go at night, so I do my best to keep my visits to the prison secret, even from her.

Grandfather is staring at his wall of screens again when I enter, but this time, he tears his gaze from them and actually looks at me as I sit down.

"Cynthia," He says without prelude as the soup course is set before us, "I've been looking into finding you a husband."

I choke on my mouthful of tomato bisque, and Grandfather frowns disapprovingly. Ladies do not choke. I press my napkin to my mouth and regain my composure before I speak.

"Really, Grandfather?"

"Yes. It's time that you were engaged to a suitable young man. I've been exploring my options."

He's been exploring his options, not mine. I drop my eyes to my bowl before he can see the flash of hatred in them. I know he's been seeking out potential husbands for me since I turned seventeen a few months ago. Marrying me will be a serious prize for any Capitol bred boy. Not only will I bring a massive dowry, it is also very likely that my Grandfather's power will transfer to me when he dies. My husband could govern Panem. Of course, given the rebellion, it is equally likely that the next ruler of Panem will not be me.

"I will, of course, expect you to marry whomever I see most fit. I can assure you, however, that I will take your happiness into consideration."

How generous of him. I slide my gaze to Diana, and in the brief instant that our eyes meet, I can see her pity for me.

"My treasurer has a son, you know," Grandfather says, waving in the next course. He doesn't notice that I've barely touched my soup. "Augustus. He's very bright."

As far as husbands go, Augustus isn't actually a bad option. He is smart, and kind, and not bad looking. At least he's abstained from all of the grotesque operations that are so fashionable. But the few times that I've met him, he's seemed far more interested in Diana than in me. He's always been gentle and kind to her, and he can communicate with her almost as well as I can. I look at Diana again, and see the thinly disguised expression of horror on her face. She'd never admit it, but I think that she was dreaming that someday, Augustus would take her away from her life of servitude.

"Yes, sir," I say, for it's the only thing that I can say. Grandfather is rather sensitive on the subject of arranged marriages.

"And," he adds, "For your eighteenth birthday, I will be more than happy to sponsor an operation for you. Any kind you like! Cheekbone implants, perhaps?"

I can tell that Grandfather genuinely thinks that this is the best gift he could give me, but I detest the disfigurations that Capitol citizens are so fond of.

"How kind of you," I say with a queasy smile.

He looks pleased with himself. But then, he always does.

…

It's later than usual when I enter the prisons, partly because it takes hours for Diana to finally fall into a fitful sleep. She's probably haunted by thoughts of Augustus and me.

As always, I go to Peeta's cell first, bracing myself for what I could find there.

To my relief, he's sitting up on his cot, unharmed. But there's a haunted look in his eyes.

"Have they tortured you?" I can't help but ask.

"No," he says. _Not yet,_ he implies.

I hand him the usual fare that I can steal from the kitchens and not have the missing food noticed, but he doesn't take it from me.

"Johanna," He whispers in a pained voice. I understand his meaning immediately. They've gotten to her first.

"Wasting away is not going to help her," I say firmly, though I feel a bit faint. What state will she be in?

He takes the bread and cheese, reluctantly, and I have a few nuts tonight, too.

"I think they wanted me to hear her scream," he says in a tortured voice.

For the first time, I move closer towards him than is strictly necessary to deliver the food. I don't like to get too attached to the prisoners, for most of them die or disappear. Still, I step up to Peeta and take his hand. I realize that he's trembling.

"Why now?" He whispers, turning his face up to me. It's gaunt with lack of nourishment and almost unrecognizable in the dim lamplight. Only his eyes are still startlingly blue, but they remind me of a child's eyes, wide and innocent. I realize suddenly that many things about Peeta remind me of a child.

"They've already taped your interview," I say, hoping that he understands my implication without my having to say it out loud, but his face remains blank. "They don't need you to look pretty anymore," I add bleakly, "They're going to question you and Johanna about the rebel plots.

"I don't know anything," He says dejectedly.

"Well, they're going to make sure. They may interview you again, as well."

He pulls his hand from mine and shoves it through his hair. "What do I do?"

At this point, there's only one thing that he can do.

"Stay alive," I say.

"And how do I do that?"

"Give them the answers that they want."

And then I slip out of his cell.

I stand trembling before Johanna's, dreading what I will find there. Besides, Johanna doesn't like me on a good night.

Through the bars in her otherwise soundproof door, I can hear her whimpering.

Slowly, I turn the lock and push open the heavy door.

The cell smells of fear and singed hair.

A bucket of water stands in a corner.

Johanna is curled up on her cot, staring fixedly at it, rocking and whimpering.

I blanch. The guards have taken the device with them, but I know that she's been electrocuted—probably before her head was shaved, for the cell reeks with the scent of burning hair.

Johanna slowly turns her head to fix her eyes on me, and then hisses like a feral animal.

I set the food on the table and back out quickly, knowing only one thing.

I must make it back to my own room before I am sick.

…

Peeta doesn't remain lucky for long.

The next night that I go back, it's clear that he's been tortured as well. He lies on his cot, shivering and delirious. He doesn't recognize me, nor is he able to eat any of the food that I have brought. He may have been physically beaten—he is bruised—but if he has been, they've been relatively gentle. I suspect that they may need more interviews, and they don't want him looking too awful for them.

As I step closer to him, I immediately see the reason for his delirium: a large, raised bump stands out on his forearm. I need only glance at it to know that it's a trackerjacker sting, but there is little that I can do now. I'll return later with some sort of cure.

I don't bother to leave him food, for the guards can't see it and he can't eat it, but I do drop some off for Johanna.

She, too, has obviously been tortured all day, but her torture is visible on her body. Nobody needs her to look pretty. I've taken to shoving the food through the bars on her window, and though I feel slightly guilty about this, she been increasingly hostile towards me since the first night I brought her food, and I can't risk an encounter. I can only pity her from afar.

…

I slip into one of Grandfather's greenhouses the next day while he's working. He has three, one for his precious roses and two devoted to the study of plants from all of the districts. He prides himself on having almost every species of Panem flora in his greenhouses, and for the first time, I thank him for it.

Since I have no idea where the plant originates, or even what it's called, I start in the District 11 section, smiling privately at the irony of it all. Grandfather's precious Hunger Games, designed to crush the Districts, will now help me save one of their most influential rebels.

No one in Panem has forgotten Rue, the tiny tribute from 11, but this is mostly due to Katniss' interest in her. My interest in her is based in her shrewd use of the wildlife around her, and it was she who healed Katniss' own trackerjacker stings with a native plant.

I peruse the 11 plot, looking carefully for the distinctively shaped leaves. I find them buried in the back corner of the plot, behind a neat sign reading _M. didyma._

I pluck four or five, sniffing them cautiously. They don't smell bitter, so I can only hope that this is indeed the plant that little Rue chewed for Katniss. It's all Peeta has.

…

When I return that night, there is a fresh new sting on his other forearm to match the fading one from the night before.

He's asleep rather than unconscious, or so I assume, because he's twitching and wildly muttering in his sleep. The name Katniss features prominently. It could be that he dreams about her all the time, but I fear that he's being conditioned against her. Hijacking is almost mythological in its rarity, but it has been used effectively before, and surely Grandfather knows that the greatest torture for Peeta would be to turn against Katniss.

Wildly hoping that I've picked the right plant, I take the leaves out of my pocket and chew them. They don't taste bitter, which is the first sign of poison, but they don't exactly taste good, either. When I can't stand it any longer, I spit the wad out and split it into two piles, pressing one against each sting on Peeta's arms.

I feel bad for subjecting him to this, at first, but he quiets and sighs heavily, so I feel confident that the plant is working.

Finally, he cracks an eye open.

"S'good," he mumbles.

I hold his head up as I pour water down his throat, and then coax a few bites of bread in, though he insists that he's not hungry.

"Thanks," He mutters finally, pushing me away from him and rolling over onto his side.

Perhaps he just wants to be left alone.

…

I return with more plants every night, for every night there is at least one new sting to replace the ones that I heal.

Peeta seems to grow more and more hostile each night as well, though this is probably due to his torture. He lives in a haze of confusion and pain, and I can't blame him for his distance. Of course, he could simply be angry that I haven't done more than I have. I probably would be. But I can't break them out: besides the fact that there's nowhere for them to go, if I was caught, I couldn't help any other prisoners.

I've known Peeta for a very short amount of time, and most of this time he has been mentally incapacitated, but I still expect the friendly, open, surprise victor from District 12, not this surly and antagonistic man. It shakes me, though I don't know quite why.

Still, he has every right to be angry with me, so I only press my lips together a little more firmly each night to keep from snapping back at him when he snarls at me and do my best to keep him alive.

…

A week or so after the first sting appears, they stop coming. He still has his old ones, of course, but they are fading rapidly with my help and no new ones crop up to replace them.

While Peeta slowly slips back into the conscious world, he seems to come back to himself, in a way. He is friendly, grateful, optimistic.

I am not optimistic.

I know that there is only one reason that the Capitol wants Peeta to look his best.

…

They air Peeta's first interview the next night, the first night that he is up and waiting for me, eager to take food.

"They aired it tonight," I say quietly, as he wolfs down a roll of bread.

Peeta pauses, thinking hard. "I thought… they taped that months ago?"

"Only a week or so," I correct him, "But yes, they wanted to wait."

"Why?"

"They wanted to leave them hanging for a while," I say cautiously, "The rebels. As to whether… you were alive or not. To see if they'd do anything."

"They haven't."

"No, there has been little organized rebellion since the night the Quarter Quell ended. They're hoping that this will be the final nail in the revolution's coffin, your call for a cease fire."

Peeta looks miserably down at his hands. They still shake wildly, despite his renewed health.

"I only wanted a better world," He whispers, "And I've killed all hope for it."

"Peeta," I say firmly, "To those who know you—who really know you—that's a call for action, not a call to end it."

I smile faintly and slip out of his cell.

…

I dine with Grandfather again the next night, and he is eager to discuss my eighteenth birthday, though it is still nine months away.

"We'll throw a party, Cynthia, so that all of Panem can see what a lovely young woman you've matured into." He smiles at me with something like real fondness, and I have a sudden twinge of guilt for my subversion. "And have you thought anymore about your operation?"

The twinge fades back into the usual dull hatred.

"Actually—" I begin, but I am interrupted by the wall of screens, all of which, excluding the Capitol screen and the ones for Districts 12 and 13, have gone suddenly very black.

At first I think that the screens are broken, but almost as soon as the thought is formulated and on my lips, a small spark appears in the middle of each, suddenly bursting into a bright flame. I steal a look at Grandfather. He looks torn between confusion and horror.

A bright gold Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion, appears out of the flames, and then a deep voice that the citizens of Panem are very familiar with speaks: "Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, burns on."

Grandfather stands, livid, and stalks out of the room, presumably to find and punish whoever is letting this happen. It is only a small consolation for him that this isn't playing in the Capitol, because the Districts are fighting the rebellion. There is no danger of a Capitol revolt, at least, not yet.

I am unable to tear my eyes from the screens. I watch, transfixed, as the clip plays on: footage of an air raid in District 8, interspersed with clips of Katniss yelling at the camera. Her words are powerful, and they will undoubtedly have an impact. She has even coined a new slogan: IF WE BURN, YOU BURN WITH US.

This video will be good for the rebellion, of that there is no doubt.

But it will be very bad for Peeta.

…

"The rebels aired a clip tonight," I say carefully to him, "About a recent bombing of District 8. And Katniss."

His face is seized by something, a spasm of confused anger, and then his eyes light up as they always do when Katniss is mentioned. "She's alright?"

"For now," I concede, "But they'll want to speak with you again.

He looks tortured again. "What do I do?"

Honestly, there's not much that he can do. "Stay alive," I say again.

…

I am not present at the filming of Peeta's next interview a few days later, after he has fully healed, and I am grateful, for there is no way that he would not recognize me now.

It is scheduled to air during our usual dinner hour, and Grandfather invites me once again to watch it with him over supper. I wonder idly why he is so eager to involve me in this rebellion before I remember that he is grooming me to be a politician just as he groomed me to be a 'lady.'

Again, though, the screens are cut to black mid-program and another rebel video invades the District airwaves, this one showing the bombing of District 8 in detail, intercut with clips of rebels discussing the attack, including the attractive young man that is supposedly Katniss' cousin. I know for a fact that this is not true, that his name is Gale Hawthorne, that he is actually in love with her. There must be something about Katniss Everdeen.

Grandfather is livid again, but he stays and watches the whole thing, coughing more and more as the ad runs on. Stress makes him sicker.

Finally, at the commercial's end, when the words "You know who they are and what they do," are dancing across the screen, he gives one great hacking cough. I see the blood run out of his mouth before he can mop it up with his handkerchief. For one moment, I think he might choke on his own blood, but he quickly composes himself.

"They were warned last time," He says tightly, presumably of whomever in video is not stopping this propaganda, "This is unforgivable."

Before he can sign their death warrants, though, the screens are righted to their normal programs and the interview of Peeta immediately begins to roll, a full twenty minutes early.

But with one look at Grandfather's face, I know that it is not enough.

…

Peeta is so lost in thought that he doesn't even notice me until I'm standing over his cot. He sits up, startled.

"You hunt, too?" He asks. This question makes no sense to me. "The only other people that can move that quietly are Katniss and Gale," He explains, "And they both hunt."

"I'm a dancer," I say impatiently, "I don't hunt. They've aired the latest one."

"And?"

"And unfortunately, they chose to air it right after another publicity stunt from the rebels. The President is livid. We can only wait to see what he decides."

"For me, or for them?"

"For everyone."

…

I knock quietly and slip into Grandfather's office the two mornings later, intent on discussing the fate of the rebels with him.

He's not alone. Five of his highest ranking government officials flank him, and they all swivel to look at me as I enter the room.

"I'm sorry, sir," I say quickly, turning to leave, "I didn't realize that you had guests."

To my surprise, Grandfather stops me.

"Stay, Cynthia. It's a perfect lesson for you in politics."

This is somewhat ironic, since Grandfather hasn't felt the need to educate me since my tutor left when I was ten, after I had learned only the rudimentary language, science, and math. Still, recently he's been interested in my interest in the government, so I oblige him and turn back to face the room.

"We're discussing the fate of the rebels," Grandfather says, motioning for me to approach his big desk. The scent of roses is overwhelming.

The man who I had apparently interrupted before launches into speech again, and I am momentarily distracted by the lone picture frame perched on Grandfather's desk. It contains not a still photo, but video footage, all of me. Walking, radiant, on the arm of some young man from my seventeenth birthday party, interacting with Capitol citizens in the recent months since my reemergence, and most of all, me dancing. In glittering costumes, at extravagant banquets, graceful and lithe, almost floating over the tips of my toes. His crowning jewel, his perfect pet.

"What do you think, Cynthia?" Grandfather asks sharply.

"On the question of the rebels, sir?" I pause, thinking. "Well, it is very difficult to ascertain exactly who is rebelling and exactly what role they are playing, is it not?"

He nods, conceding my point.

"And we must be very cautious in our vengeance, for our population is in danger of becoming unsustainable, is it not?"

He nods again.

"Perhaps," I say slowly, "We should show leniency? Give a chance for surrender? Or at the very most, only punish one or two people clearly involved with the videos—"

"Propos," one councilor interrupts, "They call them propos."

"For they do have a valid point," I say, "If we kill them all, we condemn ourselves to extinction, as well. And there is no need to punish the innocent. There is no need to punish _any_ of the innocent."

The Vice President begins to laugh. "No need to punish the innocent?" He says incredulously, "How are we to make ourselves clear if we don't punish the innocent?"

"You will only create martyrs," I say firmly.

"She has a few valid points, Marcus," Grandfather says, "She is compassionate. But there is a time and a place for compassion, and this is not it."

He looks around the room, and says firmly, "We will proceed with the planned bombing of District 13 tomorrow night at 20:00 hours." He turns to look at me, and he looks pleased. "Well, Cynthia? We will punish only the guilty district as a warning to the other—ahem—innocent ones. Does this meet with your approval?"

"If you think it best, sir, I'm sure it is," I demure, looking resolutely at the floor. If I were to look up into his eyes, I might strangle him. "Excuse me."

…

They've been stinging him again, and he's unconscious when I am finally able to sneak into his cell.

I quickly apply the leaves, shaking him desperately. I need him to get up. Panem needs him to get up.

"Peeta," I say frantically, too loudly, "Peeta, get up!"

It takes three or four minutes, and by that time I've resorted to slapping him in desperation, but he finally awakes with a jolt, almost smashing my head with his as he flies upright.

"Calypso?" He mumbles blearily.

"Peeta, listen to me." I rush, whispering again, "I need you to listen to me. Are you listening?"

"Are they alright?" He asks, ignoring my pleas.

"Peeta!" I fairly shout. He's never heard me raise my voice before, and it startles him. "Listen to me!" I hiss again, "You can save them!"

"Save who?"

"Save Katniss!" I say, but his face spasms in hatred. "Save Primrose," I try, "And Gale, and everyone in 13."

He's still breathing heavily, but he looks fixedly at me. "I don't understand," He says, upset.

"You have to warn them, Peeta," I say, The President is going to interview you himself, and it's your only chance to save them. You have to tell them that District 13 will be bombed. Obliterated."

He pales. "When?"

"Tomorrow night."

…

The interview will be broadcast live, so I watch from the dining room rather than taking the risk of Peeta seeing me.

It begins as planned, all twelve operational screens showing the seal, playing the anthem, and then broadcasting Grandfather and pulling back to include Peeta in the screen.

Peeta discusses damages done, disasters seen, districts destroyed. I'm certain that this is all scripted.

And then, suddenly, I'm seeing Katniss instead, standing in front of the rubble of a demolished building.

But somehow, this time, they've hacked the Capitol screen, as well.

Peeta's back.

Katniss reappears.

Grandfather's face is on screen, fuming.

Katniss yelling catch phrases.

Peeta, confused.

For a minute, or maybe two, the screens are a dizzying collage of video as the Capitol and District 13 battle for control of the airwaves.

Then a flat tone, and the Seal of Panem is back onscreen.

I sit, breathless and hopeless. The broadcast is over, and Peeta had no chance to warn the rebels. They will all be dead by nightfall.

But then, the press room is back on camera, chaotic. Grandfather speaks over the rushed audio from the booth.

And he asks Peeta about a message for Katniss.

Peeta pauses, concentrating hard, face contorted in the same expression of horror I had seen last night when Katniss' name was mentioned.

"Katniss… how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you… in Thirteen…"

Silence.

"Please, Peeta," I say out loud, before I can stop myself, grateful that I'm alone, "Please…"

"Dead by morning!" He cries finally, triumphantly, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

And then Katniss is back, still shots of her flashed at steady intervals over Capitol footage. But between her photo, citizens of Panem can still see the press room.

And we can all see Peeta frantically speaking, though we can't hear anything he says. We all see the camera jolted out of place. We hear a thud, and a cry of pain.

And we see blood.

…

My visit that night is fruitless, as Peeta is not even in his cell. I assume that he is in the hospital, under close watch, having his head wound doctored.

So instead, I visit Grandfather, who is still up and working in his office.

If he thinks it strange that I'm up at one in the morning wandering the Mansion, he says nothing of it.

"Hello, Cynthia," He says, wearily.

I look at him for what feels like the first time. He looks old, and tired.

"Have the bombs been dropped?" I ask.

"Yes, it was too late to recall them after that joke of an interview." His anger is well disguised, but it's there.

"And?"

"No word yet, though they are probably in lockdown after Mr. Mellark's stunt. I'd be surprised if there are many casualties." He sounds bitter, though I inwardly rejoice at the news.

"Peeta?" I ask.

"Temporarily reassigned to the hospital," Grandfather answers, "He'll be put back in prison tomorrow. And he will be punished."

"You can't kill him," I blurt, but Grandfather hardly looks up.

"No, of course not, he's a valuable weapon. We can't lose that."

"What could Peeta do?" I ask nervously, "He's been broken."

"He can help us to break someone far more important," Grandfather says, "Only a long line in a series of attempts to drive Katniss Everdeen quite mad. As a matter of fact, I've included a special delivery for her in tonight's air raid that should help with that goal."

"Mad?" I echo.

"Oh, yes, she's far more useful to us mentally incapacitated than physically so. And even if she does die at Mr. Mellark's hands, the Capitol can escape the blame for it entirely."

"Are you releasing him, then?" I ask.

"Soon. Another week or so should be enough, and then we'll deliver him back to Thirteen."

He looks a bit like a snake when he smiles.

…

Peeta's back in prison the following night, and he has indeed been punished, just as Grandfather promised.

Two new welts are raised on his arm, which I quickly heal, but he's in more mental anguish than physical.

"They tortured avoxes tonight, just to make me watch," He whispers brokenly.

I blanch, thinking of Diana, asleep upstairs.

"They waited on us in the Quarter Quell. The girl died right away but…" He breaks off, and starts to cry. "They've been torturing Darius all day! Electrocuting him over and over!"

I stand uneasily, torn between comforting him and slipping quietly away.

Finally, I sit next to him and take his hand. If anyone deserves to cry, it's Peeta.

"It will all be over soon," I reassure him.

…

I don't sleep a wink that night, and the next day, I am a bundle of nerves, jumping at the slightest sound and continually tapping my foot, until even Diana shoots me a look of disapproval.

I spend the whole of the next day in the dining room, watching the screens closely. All is normal until 15:00 hours, when we are bombarded once again by propos.

There are a few shots of Katniss, but most are of Finnick Odair sharing salacious gossip about the Captiol. Even I don't know most of the information that he is sharing, much less that he had been virtually a slave, and I sit, transfixed and horror-struck, as he tells his stories. Some is lost in the battle to block the propo, but most is complete, especially the attack on Grandfather's rise to power. Strangely, this does not horrify me as much as the rest of the broadcast. What I hadn't already known, I could have guessed.

Finally, the airwaves are calm again, and I sit, driven to distraction, until I know the guards have stopped patrolling. Then I slip down to the prisons, much too early to be safe, simply for the sake of doing something.

I have no plants tonight, for I've almost completely used the leaves from Grandfather's greenhouse, but it's just as well, for they haven't stung Peeta today.

He's sitting up, looking miserable. "They killed Darius today," he tells me.

Before I can answer him, the prison suddenly goes silent with the unmistakable sound of power failure. The safety lights in the hallway go dark, and Peeta and I look at each other in the dim light of my lamp.

And then there is a mighty, metallic crashing, and the door to his cell swings open, lock broken, admitting a swarm of armed soldiers.

I open my mouth to ask them who they are, but as soon as I have inhaled, the soldier in front has seized me by the upper arms and pushed me back into the wall.

Suddenly, six gun barrels are trained on me, excepting only that of the soldier who is holding me against the wall.

"State your business!" He growls, "Who are you and why are you here?"

"Don't hurt her!" Peeta cries from his cot, "Calypso's been helping! She brings me food and medicine!" He's suddenly frantic and confused.

The soldier doesn't move, and his grip doesn't loosen, but he takes a closer look at me.

I'm obviously unarmed, and much smaller than he is. A flash of recognition lights up his grey eyes: maybe he recognizes me from my appearances years ago, or perhaps I just remind him of someone.

I look closer at him too, though it seems futile. The faces of all of the soldiers are covered, excepting their eyes. I know these eyes though, everyone in Panem does. They're the eyes of the Mockingjay. But it is just as obvious that this man isn't Katniss. Another look at those steel grey eyes and I know who he is: someone who looks enough like Katniss to be her cousin.

"Gale," I say in a low voice.

He's very good, but he can't hide his surprise at my knowing his name. His grip on my biceps loosens infinitesimally, and he looks closer into my face. Again, a look of recognition flits across his features. Do I remind him of Katniss? We both have light eyes and long, dark hair, but the similarities stop there. Katniss is tan, with the same grey eyes as Gale, but I am pale and my eyes are so green that many wonder if they are a product of the Capitol, though they aren't. Even with my hair like it is tonight, like Katniss wears hers, in one long braid falling over my shoulder and down my chest, there is no way that he could mistake its deep, changeable brown, reddish in the sun and almost gold in dim light, for Katniss' black.

"How do you know my name?" He finally asks.

"Your eyes," I respond.

"How do you—"

"Hawthorne," Another soldier interrupts, "You're in half of the propos. Come on, we gotta move."

Gale ignores him. "Who are you?"

"I told you, she's Calypso. She's kept Johanna alive and she's helped me through my interviews. She told me about 13 being bombed!" Peeta's frantic, even more so since I mentioned Gale's name, and he looks as if he might leap up and kill us all. He grips the edge of his cot fiercely; his blue eyes are suddenly very black.

The whole room swivels to stare at Peeta, excluding Gale, who is still staring fixedly at me, as if they had forgotten he was in the room.

"Soldier Hawthorne," the soldier who spoke before interrupts again, "We don't have time."

"This is important," He snaps back, "Go get Johanna and I'll meet up with you later."

The soldier rolls his eyes, startlingly blue in his masked face, and takes five soldiers to the next cell over. One stays behind to help Peeta to his feet.

"Do you work for Plutarch?" Gale asks.

"No."

"You're not one of his people?" I'm tempted to roll my eyes at his question, for if I were to help them break into the prison, they wouldn't need to break the locks on the doors.

"No," I reply, calmly.

"How did you get into the cells?"

"Master key," I answer.

"Give it to me," he says urgently, "We can use it for Johanna's—"

There is a large crash, implying that the lock has already been smashed, and he stops himself.

"How did you know about the bombing of 13?"

The other soldier appears back in the doorway. Behind him, two men support Johanna, unconscious, in between them.

"Time's up, Hawthorne," He snaps.

"Boggs…" Gale sounds frustrated.

"No, we have to get out now," Boggs replies.

Reluctantly, Gale removes his hands from my arm. They are so large that his fingers overlapped each other, cutting off circulation entirely. I am tempted to rub some feeling back into my fingers, but I won't give him the satisfaction.

"Don't tell anyone," He threatens, still standing too close to me.

"You think she's going to tell them that she's been sneaking to the prisons every night?" Peeta wheezes.

The soldier supporting him leads him out of the doorway. "Calypso," Peeta yells on his way out, "I'll tell them… I'll tell them that you helped! I'll tell them not to hurt you! I won't let them hurt you! I won't let her—" I smile faintly at him, appreciative of the gesture, but certain that it won't work. By helping with the rebellion, I've resigned myself to whatever fate the rebels decide appropriate for me when they take the city, even if it's not fair.

Gale turns to go too, but at the last minute, I reach out to take his hand.

"Gale," I whisper, once I'm certain that Peeta's out of earshot.

He shakes my hand off, looking speculatively at me, already halfway out the door.

"He's dangerous, Gale," I whisper frantically, "They've perverted his memories, he can't tell what's real anymore."

"He seems pretty certain that your help was real," Gale answers.

I have no time, so I don't bother explaining that they didn't know he knew me, they had no memories of me to change. "He'll attack someone!" I say instead, "You've got to warn them!"

"Hawthorne!" Boggs barks from the hallway, and Gale leaves without a backwards look.

I'm left standing alone in a dark, cold prison cell.

…

The next weeks are dismal.

The rebels are gaining more and more ground, and Grandfather looks grimmer and grimmer.

There has been such an improvement in the security of the prisons that I can no longer visit them. The first time I tried, I was intercepted immediately by one of the guards. I pretended that I had been sleepwalking, and though he didn't entirely believe me, my last name instilled him with enough fear that he walked me up to my bedroom himself.

I feel utterly alone.

Even Diana's been distant recently. After she helps me with what she's required to, she disappears until meal time.

At first, I'm upset by this, but then I find her kissing Augustus, the treasurer's son, in a spare room, and I feel so guilty for being intended for him that I leave them alone.

I wander the Mansion aimlessly, using my master key to open any locked doors in my path. Sometimes I discover rooms that I hadn't known to exist, filled with interesting things. I discover a study containing all of Panem's official documents and spend days pouring over them, tracking the rise of the Capitol's power. I find old closets fill with out-dated, unfashionable clothing. I find a girl's bedroom, undisturbed and at least fifteen years old, but I leave it quickly when I discover the name 'Aurora' engraved into the top of a wooden chest.

I revisit old rooms that I had all but forgotten about. I spend hours in my dance studio, slowly rediscovering steps that I thought that I had forgotten. I return to the library, and I am so unsettled that I read books that even I would never had dreamed to read weeks before: highly subversive books_,_ accounts of Revolution in past societies. I even read holy books like the Bible and the Koran, though God is obsolete in Panem.

I rediscover all of the 'womanly arts' that Grandfather had thought it fit to teach me, knitting scarves and embroidering cushions, even opening that piano that I had locked three years ago.

The streets near the Mansion are secure, though sometimes I stare out my window, as if I can see the rebels from half a mile away.

Slowly, the circle of rebels surrounding the Capitol closes in on the Mansion. Every day, citizens evacuated from rebel occupied blocks trickle in closer and closer to the Mansion. The entire population of the city becomes contained in five or six blocks.

I open doors to the neediest, families with small children and the sick suffering in the cold, thankful to feel useful again. We have enough spare rooms that with one family to a room, we can house thirty or forty families. A broadcast is made demanding that citizens open their doors to refugees. It doesn't work, but more and more families approach the Mansion, hoping for shelter. When the bedrooms fill, I begin to utilize every room we have, dining rooms, living rooms. There are grumbles from those who had lived alone in huge apartments, those used to more space, but they quickly realize that sharing a room with others is preferable to hypothermia. Only the eight or nine rooms of the residential quarter and the Governmental Quarters remain closed to the public on Grandfather's orders. When there is absolutely no more room in the Mansion, when the kitchens can barely turn out enough food to feed everyone, then Peacekeepers are dispatched to force citizens to open their doors.

I feel a dull fear for what will happen to me when they take the city, but I am too busy playing hostess to worry about it much.

One morning, I am woken by a tattoo of gunfire. The Mansion is in chaos, men and women and children screaming and running, quite forgetting that they are safe and inside. One little girl's parents are so frantic that they have lost her in the rush, and she is sobbing in a corner of a busy hallway, nearly trampled by rushing footsteps. I stop a couple who look less frenetic than most and ask them to call for order, to remind everyone that they are safe and to stop panicking. Fighting the crowds, I make my way towards the bawling little girl and crouch in front of her.

"It's all right," I reassure her, "You're safe."

"I want mummy!" She sobs.

I sit next to her and she crawls up into my lap, looking for comfort. I whisper meaningless phrases in her ear and rock her gently, until her tears subside enough that I can understand her.

"Let's find your mummy," I say and pick her up, since she refuses to be set down.

The girl is young and has no idea which room they were assigned, so I walk from room to room, trying to keep order and find her parents at the same time. She tucks her head into my next and sniffles from time to time. I ask her name, Marcia Stewart, but nobody seems to know where the Stewart family is staying.

There is more gunfire, and more screaming, though this comes from outside of the Mansion, not in it. I rush to the nearest window and pull the curtain aside, making sure Marcia's face is still averted as I look out. The streets have been painted red with blood. Pods are still being set off, here and there, and people fall, steamed to death, struck by darts, falling down gaping holes in the streets. Directly in front of the Mansion, in front of me, a pen has been set up, and Capitol children are milling about inside of it, guarded by peacekeepers. Some are sitting, crying, some are huddled in groups.

I look further across the square. People milling everywhere. Some dead, some alive, some injured. Some who seem to have simply given up, who are sitting, waiting for death. A girl in a fur hood with a dark braid, climbing a flagpole, borne up by a crowd of people all with a cry on their lips: "The rebels! The rebels!"

An army making its way through the square, pushing citizens back onto the deadly streets. A boy with blonde hair, desperately fighting his way through them.

And then, a hovercraft appears. It is painted with the seal of the Capitol, though this cannot be correct. We have no hovercrafts left. If we had, Grandfather would have evacuated us.

"Cyn'ta?" Marcia's raised her head from my shoulder, is looking out the window and back up at me, concerned, tugging on my braid. "Cyn'ta?" She says again, panic rising in her voice.

In the moment that it takes me to tuck her head back into my neck, to make sure she can't see out of the window, the parachutes must have fallen, for when I look up, all I see is the flash.

I let out an involuntary shriek, and Marcia starts to cry again, knowing that something's wrong, but unsure of what.

I shush her instinctively, bouncing her, but I'm transfixed, looking out of the window down at the square. A swarm of people in white enter the barricade to care for those left alive. Some of them are children, too. The girl who must be Katniss rushed across the square. The boy who must be Peeta rushes to intercept her. A slight, blonde girl, one of the medics, turns her head. Another flash. Balls of fire. Silence.

I'm breathing heavily, unable to hold myself upright. I slump against the window frame. I'm partly aware of Marcia in my arms, and I think that this is the only thing that keeps me from passing out.

Horror. Death. I hate death. I don't care whose death, Capitol or rebel, it's equally horrific.

I still can't tear myself from the window. I watch, transfixed, as the rebel army approaches the Mansion. A dark haired man rushes to join them, dribbling blood in his wake. They disappear though the door, the boy who must be Gale at their head. New medics are patrolling the square, finding the injured among the dead and loading them onto gurneys. Katniss and Peeta are among the injured.

The rebels are in the Mansion, though I can't hear them. I wonder where Grandfather is and decide that I don't care much. I stand by my window, awaiting death.

Footsteps outside the room. Marcia lifts her head and stares out the doorway. She tugs my braid again.

A deep voice from behind me, a voice that I recognize from one night weeks ago. It says my name like a death sentence.

"Cynthia Snow."

I turn, and look into Gale's grey eyes. He holds his left arm awkwardly, and a bullet arm in that shoulder dribbles blood down onto the floor, staining the white rug. Another wound on his right forearm, though it's superficial.

"You should be in the hospital," I say dully.

He brushes off my concern. "Later," he says, "I needed to get to you first."

"Why?"

"To protect you." I must look incredulous, for he sighs. "Peeta tried to tell them. That when they took the Capitol, they must not hurt the girl named Calypso. But besides the fact that he was delirious half of the time, no one had heard of a girl named Calypso."

"That's why I gave him that name," I say faintly. "He couldn't know who I was."

"I recognized you, though," Gale continues, ignoring, me, "Even though I couldn't remember where I'd seen you. But Boggs recognized you, too, from years ago, when you went everywhere with the President. We promised Peeta that we'd try to protect you."

"Where's Boggs?" I ask, for he seemed higher ranking than Gale, and I would have thought that he would have lead the charge into the Mansion.

"Dead," Gale says shortly.

We stare at each other for a moment.

"Why do you care about me?" I say, finally, for Gale doesn't strike me as the type of person to have compassion for an enemy.

"Partly because at the time that I agreed with Peeta that you had been valuable to the rebellion, I didn't know who you were. Partly because you remind me of another girl."

"Katniss?" I ask.

"A different girl. Another daughter of a leader. And she was a rebel, too."

Something about the way he talks about her tells me that she's dead.

"What's going to happen to me?" I ask.

"There'll be a trial, later," He says. "House arrest, for now." He takes my arm again, but gently. "I have to take you there now."

I had almost forgotten about Marcia until she starts to cry again. "Mummy!" She wails.

"Who is her mother?" Gale asks.

"I have no idea," I respond, "I was trying to find her."

He leads me, wordlessly, down the halls to my bedroom. "You can have this room," he intones, "Your bathroom, your living room. You may go nowhere else."

I nod, dully. It's better than I had expected.

"I'll post guards at your door. You'll be safe."

"Where's Diana?" I ask.

"Who?"

"My… friend. She's an avox."

"Your slave, you mean?" He snaps. I fix him with a glare.

"She was my best friend," I respond.

He rolls his eyes. "Most of the avoxes were freed upon arrival," Gale says, "But I'll ask around."

He holds out his arms, meaning to take Marcia, but she clings to me. Eventually, he pries her off of me, and though she's sobbing again, he balances her on his hip like he holds small children everyday.

"Her name's Marcia Stewart. Find her family."

"I will," he says, turning to go.

"Cyn'ta!" Marcia screeches, holding her arms out for me, "Cyn'ta!"

Gale murmurs something in her ear, and she quiets a bit.

I swallow hard, and turn away.

I can hear her sobbing for me all the way down the hall.

…

Gale visits me once more, the next day, to ask if I need anything and snap a tracker anklet onto me. He's off to Two for at least a week, and I am allowed to see no one else.

To my own surprise as much as his, I ask about Grandfather.

"He's confined to his rooms, as you are," Gale answers. He's been patched up from the bullet wounds, but he seems sad, subdued. He's changed. The man who gripped my arms so firmly they bruised a week ago is not the same man who now visits the granddaughter of his sworn enemy. I want to ask why, but I know better than anybody how war changes people. "He's allowed his bedroom, his bathroom, a small living room, and his greenhouse. Just the one with the roses."

Gale doesn't say it, but I know that they don't want him to utilize any poisonous plants.

"Where's Marcia?"

"I found her parents, yesterday afternoon. She's with them now. She's safe."

"Where's everybody else?" I ask.

"Katniss and Peeta are still in the hospital. Burn unit," Gale responds. "Capitol citizens are going back home. Oh, I asked about your friend, Diana?"

"Yes?" I say eagerly, but he just shakes his head sadly.

"No word. She probably fled with the rest of the avoxes. I assume she doesn't have family?"

I turn to look back out my window. It makes me feel not quite so imprisoned. "I don't know," I reply. I can sense his disapproval at my lack of knowledge. "I asked," I say defensively, "But she never wanted to talk about her family, or why she was an avox."

I sense rather than see Gale turn to go, but I stop him. "What's going to happen to me?" I ask.

"I don't know. There'll probably be a trial. After that… who knows. You may be let free. You may need guards. You may be executed."

This does not surprise me, but I don't really want to think about it.

"Why are you so sad?" I ask instead, startling us both. "You've won."

I turn to watch him. He looks haunted. "I don't know if anyone has won this war," he says bitterly. "I certainly didn't. Do you have any idea how many people I've killed?"

I don't answer him.

"Hundreds," he says anyway, "and the worst part is, I used to not care."

"What made you care?" I ask.

His face contorts in anguish. "Prim…" He whispers. I must look blank. "Katniss' little sister," he clarifies, "She was a medic yesterday, after the parachutes. She was killed in the second blast."

I don't know what to say to this. "Were they your bombs?" I ask finally.

"I don't know. Probably. It was my strategy, anyway, to use emotions like compassion to kill more people more quickly. But Prim… She was practically _my_ little sister. My brother, Rory, was in love with her. And besides that, Katniss will never forgive me." He bows his head for a moment, and looks much older than he is. Weighed down by guilt. "I've just realized that everybody that died was somebody's Prim. And I killed them all. The dreams…" He breaks off again. "I couldn't sleep last night. They haunted me."

He straightens suddenly, ashamed of his weakness, and morphs back into the proud, capable military man he tries to be. "I'll be back in a week," he says.

Then he's gone.

…

He's gone much longer than a week. Or perhaps in my isolation, it simply feels like much more than a week.

Gale is the only person allowed to see me, besides the two guards always stationed at my door, and they are uncommunicative.

Only one, a small girl with warm brown eyes, ever speaks to me, and she does so sparsely. But from her, I learn important facts. Katniss is in the Mansion. Grandfather has a trial scheduled. Katniss wanders the Mansion aimlessly. Grandfather has been sentenced to execution.

She tells me that Grandfather and Katniss have talked, which is strange. Someone has found her burrowed into a pile of my old silken evening gowns, the ones I have long outgrown. It is shocking to know that she is so near me, only rooms away, and yet we are oblivious to each other's existence.

The morning of Grandfather's execution, Gale appears back in my doorway. His appearance surprises me, for I had thought that he was still in District 2. He looks tense.

"How've you been?" He asks.

"Lonely," I reply truthfully. He pretends that my imprisonment is to keep my restrained, but I know that it is as much for my own safety as for anybody else's. Any number of rebels would love to have their way with me. This doesn't make my isolation any easier. "How've you been?" I ask, before he can disapprove of my complaining.

"Busy," he replies. "I only got back this morning. I've been speaking with Katniss."

His face tightens. He doesn't have to tell me that she won't forgive him. I can read it in his eyes.

"Anyway," he says, "I should be off. Is there anything you need?"

I pause, debating whether or not to ask. "Can I have a walk?" I finally say. "I'm quite tired of this room."

I expect him to tell me off for not handling my well-deserved punishment, but he only raises an eyebrow. "I suppose that we can accommodate that request," he says, leading me out of the room and motioning for the guards to follow. They do, three paces behind Gale and I.

I walk slowly through the halls of my childhood, wondering if I will ever see any of this again. The plush living room, the cozy study, the dining room.

I pause at the doorway to the latter. Voices are emerging from it. A female voice that I do not recognize. "…in lieu of eliminating the entire Capitol population, we have a final, symbolic Hunger Games, using the children directly related to those who held the most power."

I freeze, oblivious to Gale tugging on my elbow.

"What?" Another female asks. It sounds like Johanna Mason.

"We hold another Hunger Games using Capitol children," the first woman says.

An angry outburst from Peeta, the first woman speaks again. There is a buzzing in my head and I don't hear any of their words.

Gale's eyes are narrowed, but he looks worried. He tugs on my elbow again, intent on taking me back to my room. I yank it out of his reach and step closer to the doorway.

"No!" Peeta shouts, "I vote no, of course! We can't have another Hunger Games!"

"Why not?" Johanna again. "It seems very fair to me. Snow even has a granddaughter. I vote yes." I don't know whether or not Johanna knew who had brought her food. It doesn't really matter.

Gale's at my arm again, tugging harder.

"I need to know!" I hiss.

It looks painful for him, but he stops tugging on my arm, though he doesn't drop it.

"So do I," another woman says, sounding bored. "Let them have a taste of their own medicine."

"This is why we rebelled!" Peeta says, sounding angry, "Remember? Annie?"

"I vote no with Peeta," the woman who must be Annie replies, "So would Finnick if he were here."

"But he isn't, because Snow's mutts killed him," Johanna says snidely.

"No," says another man, "It would set a bad precedent. We have to stop viewing one another as enemies. At this point, unity is essential for our survival. No."

"We're down to Katniss and Haymitch," the first woman says.

A pause, and then the voice that I recognize as Katniss, though I've never spoken to her. "I vote yes," she says slowly, "For Prim."

Gale looks to be in pain. One more vote.

There is a torrent of words inside the dining room, mostly from Peeta. And then… "I'm with the Mockingjay," a final voice says.

My knees buckle, and Gale reaches out to catch me, but I regain my balance at the last moment.

"Come on," he says, pulling my arm again. This time I do not resist.

They don't need a trial to condemn me to death.

He leads me back to my room and sits me down on the couch, looking concernedly at me.

"You shouldn't have heard that," he says.

I don't respond.

A giant roar goes up from the crowd assembled below my window.

I jump up and push Gale aside, rushing to it and looking out.

"Shouldn't you be down there?" I ask him.

I sense rather than see him shrug. "No one needs me there," he says bitterly. "Least of all Katniss."

Grandfather is being led out onto the terrace, his hands are being secured behind a post. For an instant, he glances up towards my window as if he knows I am standing there. As if he is saying goodbye.

He coughs, and unable to reach a handkerchief, the blood dribbles down his chin.

Gale's arms wrap around me from behind, solid and inescapable, and he starts to lift me. "You're not watching this," he says firmly.

"Put me down!" I screech, and he's so startled by my outburst that he does. "I have to watch!" I cry, "Don't you understand? I have to…"

I don't finish my sentence. Katniss raises her bow. A pause. The arrow flies. Chaos.

It takes my brain a moment to put the pieces together. Katniss shot, but she didn't shoot him. She didn't miss. She shot somebody else, a woman I recognize as the new President. Grandfather is alive.

"She shot Coin?" Gale whispers from beside me, unbelieving.

The crowd advances, obstructing our view. When they pull back, Katniss is gone. Peeta is gone. Coin is gone. And Grandfather is dead.

…

Information comes in bits and pieces over the next couple of days.

Katniss has been imprisoned. A Commander named Paylor is President. Nobody knows how Grandfather died.

I don't learn of my trial until the morning of, when Gale appears in my doorway, leading three people, clearly Capitol, behind him.

"Katniss' old prep team," He says by way of introduction, "They'll ready you for your trial."

They twist my curls back into a flattering style, though not nearly as well as Diana used to, and smooth makeup over my bare face, fawning over my bright green eyes.

Finally, just as Gale reenters to escort me down to my trial, they help me into a pure white dress.

"How do I look?" I ask.

"Innocent," he replies, "And that's what matters."

My trial is short. People that I barely recognize testify that I am relatively harmless. Several Capitol citizens step forward to tell how I opened the doors of the Mansion to the bereft, a man named Mr. Stewart, whom I assume is Marcia's father, among them. Peeta appears briefly to say that I kept him alive in prison and fed him bits of information to help the citizens of 13. The new Secretary of Communications and former Head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee, who was in 13 at the time, confirms this story. Even Gale testifies that I helped Capitol citizens and District citizens alike, that I warned him of the hijacking before hand, that I have accepted my punishment unflinchingly and have never tried to escape.

I don't get to testify.

They take me back to my room afterwards, and I wait tensely for an hour before Gales brings me my verdict: an exile of sorts.

"You are to leave the Capitol as soon as possible," he recites, "You are to reside in a District of your choice with a suitable guard until your death or until the Court reconsiders the decision, whichever comes first."

"Who will my guard be?" I ask. I'm not unpleased with the verdict. I'm not to be executed, and there will be no new Hunger Games, with Coin gone.

Gale looks uncomfortably at the floor. "Me, if you're agreeable," he says. "My family's in Thirteen, but we're all moving to Two. I mean, you'd be living with all of us, not just me. My mother suggested it, actually, she needs the help, if you're willing to work for keep. Plus, I'm not especially keen on babysitting, so I won't watch you too closely."

"I'm agreeable," I say at once.

"Tell me one thing, Cynthia," he says, "Why _are_ you a rebel? Why do you hate the Capitol so much?"

I rise and move to look out the window again. "He killed my parents," I say dully.

"Wasn't your mother—"

"Aurora Snow," I say, "Hope of Panem. Grandfather had a marriage arranged for her, and she had agreed to it, but three weeks before the wedding she announced that she was pregnant. The whole thing was called off, and Grandfather was livid. He found out whoever the man was and killed him straight off. He allowed my mother to carry me to term. She died in childbirth, or so the story goes. He could have saved her, though. It was a simple problem, any hospital could have saved her. But he let her die and he raised me, hoping for another chance. Obviously, it didn't work."

"And you don't know anything about your father?" Gale asks.

I shake my head. "Not who he was, not where he was from… though I've always assumed that he was from Four."

"Why?"

I turn my head to look at him. "Nobody else has eyes like this," I say sadly.

We're quiet for a moment, and then he says, "Finnick had eyes like that. So does Annie. We can go to Four someday and ask around, if you want."

The plural strikes me, and I wonder why I've been offered me place in his life.

"Why don't you hate me?" I ask him, "I stand for everything you've just beaten."

Gale turns away from me and runs a hand through his hair. "I'm so sick of it all," he says finally. "After Madge died, last year, in Twelve, I just… I just hated everybody, you know? I wanted anybody that had a part in it to die, anybody who knew but stood by, even those who saw and didn't do anything! I could have killed Panem, the whole damn country, every single child in it, and I really wouldn't have cared. But then I did. I killed Panem, I killed the children. And I've realized that they were innocent, they were all so innocent. Madge didn't deserve to die, but neither did they. And Prim was the worst, like I'd killed my own family. I had, practically. And now I just don't care. I don't care who people are, or where they came from. I've seen enough death to last me a lifetime. Nobody believes me, because I went so mad last year, but I've stopped hating you all. It just takes too much energy, and I really just don't care that much."

He's pacing frantically on the rug, spinning on his heel every time he reaches the end of it. It makes me dizzy, so I look back out the window. "Besides," he adds, "I know that you helped the rebels, and that you helped Peeta and Johanna and the others. I'd like to think that I would at least respect you for that, the way I was before."

"I don't even know your mother," I point out, "Why would she take me, too?"

"I don't know. I've told her about you—what little I know, at least. She's eager for help. Maybe she sees herself in you."

I say nothing. City Circle has been cleared, but in my head I still see the explosions, the fires, the small, lifeless bodies.

"When do we leave?" I ask.

…

Life in Two suits me.

For his help with the war and as a reward for agreeing to be my guard, Gale is offered a military ambassadorship to the Capitol. He accepts. This position suits him. He still has power, both here in Two and back in the Capitol, to make sure the rebels' plans are carried out, but he does not have the burden of running the district.

He's awarded a house in the former Victor's Village in respect of his title, but he defers, and instead requests a lovely house of marble on the outskirts of town, large enough to comfortably house his siblings, his mother, and myself.

I had worried about living with this family, but Hazelle accepts me immediately. She's thankful both for my help around the house and for the fact that her children seem to behave better when I'm around. Gale is less brooding, Rory and Vick both somewhat shy, but polite, and Posy is adoring. I've never had a proper family, and I adore my new siblings.

When Gale gets the time, he slips into the woods to hunt, Rory shadowing him closely. They make an excellent team. Both of them seem less haunted in the woods.

Rory still mourns Prim, but Hazelle says that he is recovering better here than in Thirteen. He'll be happy someday. The girls whisper delightedly about him when he passes them at school, but he watches only one with curious eyes: a lovely redhead, small, quiet and sweet, with an unexpected spark in her blue eyes.

Vick is less scarred than his older brothers by the war, but his large grey eyes are surprisingly solemn. Even now, I can tell that he'll be softer than Rory or Gale, sweeter, more carefree. Hazelle says that he resembles his father, but he has the same kind smile as her.

Most of my skills are useless in Two. Gale presents me with a fresh kill my first night, skinned and ready to cook, with a teasing look in his eye, waiting for my failure. It doesn't come. I surprise us both when I turn out to have a natural aptitude for cooking, and he grudgingly admits that I'm as good a cook as he's ever seen. Hazelle, busy running her laundry business, turns all kitchen duties over to me, and I spend many happy days in the sunny kitchen, experimenting with ingredients, humming to myself, dancing to my own song.

Posy catches me at it one day, waltzing and turning as I wait for a pie to bake, and demands that I teach her. Gale disapproves at first, rolling his eyes and denouncing the impracticality of dancing, but both Posy and I ignore him and I teach the little girl steps that I unconsciously remember. She's good, much better than I ever was. Gale's always been most vulnerable to her china-doll looks, and as soon as she imperiously commands him to watch, round cheeks pink with excitement and clear eyes dancing, he stops pretending to care that she dances. The pride is evident in his face.

Some things from home are still useful. I knit furiously, keeping the whole family in hats, scarves and gloves through the bitter winters. For the first time in my life, I'm useful, and I love the feeling.

Still, we have all been touched by this awful war.

The first few months are the worse. Though Vick and Rory never call out, their rooms are filled with the sounds of rustling bedding and uneven breaths, sure signs that they aren't sleeping. Hazelle's lamp burns late into the night.

Posy sobs in her sleep, convinced that the bombs of Twelve and Thirteen will strike again. She wakes calling for Gale, not her mother, for she fears that he has left her. Most nights, he walks the hallway, cradling her in his arms, though she's too big for it now, rocking her and singing her a lullaby until she falls back asleep, comforted by his warm embrace. Hazelle worries that it is too much for Gale, but Gale hardly sleeps anyway. He would stay up with Posy even if he could sleep, for he feels guilty for abandoning her and it saves Hazelle having to get up.

But by the time summer rolls around, Posy and Vick are sleeping through the night. Hazelle turns her lamp down by midnight, and even Rory seems more at peace. Ironically, in this silent house, the nightmares begin to stalk me for the first time.

The first night I wake up screaming, I dream about Grandfather. The smell is almost visceral, blood and roses. _Cynthia,_ he says, _here's your husband._ Augustus appears, but he is not Augustus. His eyes are bright red, and he reaches a clawed hand towards me. His lips pull back in a tight smile, revealing fangs. _Mine,_ he whispers, _you're mine._ Diana appears, but she, too, is different. More beautiful, but terrifyingly so. She opens her mouth, and I hear her speak for the first time, though she still has no tongue: _mine. He's mine._ I look to Grandfather, smiling the same tight lipped smile as Augustus, the same fangs. _You know what happens to those who defy me, Cynthia,_ he says menacingly, _you know what happens to those who break a marriage contract. I'll kill you. I can kill you. You're mine. Mine._ The room is full of people I know, some dead, some alive, all advancing on me. _Mine,_ they all hiss, _you're mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine._

By the time I wake, sitting up with a start and a shriek, Gale's standing over me, shirtless and disheveled, holding a dimly lit lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, looking concerned. "Stop, Cynthia," He says in a low voice, husky with sleep, "You'll wake the kids." Certain now that there's no intruder, he sets the knife down. Obediently, I clamp my mouth shut. Then I burst into tears.

He looks shaken and wary, but he sets the lamp down and sits on the edge of the bed. I half expect a reprimand, but he doesn't say anything. We both know that this is the first time that I've cried since I left the Capitol.

He reaches out tentatively, brushing my arm with just one finger, and then, when I don't flinch, wrapping both arms around me. He lets me wet his bare chest with tears until I am coherent, rocking me like he does Posy.

"I want Diana," I choke finally, gasping for breath, but my eyes well again as I realize that I won't ever see her again. Still, Gale says nothing, only sighing and wrapping tighter me in his arms. I feel him yawn against me, and that only sets me off again, knowing that I've dragged him from the only restful night's sleep he's had in months.

When he realizes that I won't stop crying, he lays us both down across my bed, never letting go. I'm grateful for his presence, but it doesn't surprise me in the least. Gale has an incredible protective instinct, especially towards the women in his life: Hazelle, Katniss, Madge, me, Posy. Especially Posy.

I cry myself to sleep, and when I wake up, Gale's still there, still wrapped protectively around me, fast asleep. I don't move, desperate not to wake him, but he opens his eyes immediately anyway. We stare at each other for a moment, our faces inches apart, and then he sits up, taking the knife and lamp from the table, moving soundlessly towards the doorway. I feel strangely bereft without him, indignant that he would just leave, but he turns at the door and gives a strange, sad smile. "You don't belong to them," he says, and then vanishes into the night before his family can discover us together.

We never discuss that night, but we're closer. He spends more nights in my room, or I in his, when he wakes yelling, but it is a silent sort of agreement and we always slip back to our own beds before the rest of the house wakes. Still, Hazelle looks speculatively at us over the breakfast table each morning.

After a year, I'm called back to the Capitol for a review of my case. Once again, I'm not allowed to testify, Gale testifies that I've never tried to escape, that I've never defied an order, that I've been a model prisoner. He doesn't mention that I'm living with his family, not as a prisoner, or that I've been issued no orders to follow. The court doesn't ask.

The Capitol is both strangely different and comfortingly similar to the way I remember it being, but its residents look far more normal now. Gale causes a stir, appearing in town, and I hang in the background, wary of recognition. Somebody asks him how he feels about the fact that both Katniss and Peeta have returned to Twelve, and he says that he's very happy for them both. He doesn't seem startled by the news, and I guess that he had already been told.

He's made his peace with Katniss, even if she doesn't know it.

The court returns the verdict that, while I am still required to check in with my guard every week, I am no longer a prisoner of Panem, and Gale smiles broadly at me from across the courtroom, rushing to hug me as soon as we're out of the public eye. It's our first embrace outside the cover of darkness and fear, and it's strangely exhilarating.

Still, I am in exile and I can't stay in the Capitol, so we return to Two, where the Hawthorne family greets us at the train station. For the first time, I feel that I'm coming home.

We travel to Four two months later, just Gale and I. Tickets are still too expensive, even with Gale's position, to take everybody, and I'm surprised enough that he managed to get two. He had given them to me on _his_ twenty-first birthday, sheepishly explaining that, since they'd never celebrated my eighteenth, it was a belated present.

We have no success in finding my father, but still, everything seems to change. For the first time, he isn't guarding me, and the difference between friend and prisoner is immense. We've always shared the night, since the first time we met, but alone, under the cover of darkness, he kisses me. It's soft and urgent, warm and desperate. It's my first kiss, and it's perfect.

He holds my hand tightly on the train the next morning, and though we separate by the time we see his family, Hazelle smirks knowingly at us. I don't mind.

People still assume that I'm Gale's prisoner, or his concubine, but I don't mind that, either. Our relationship is chaste for months, years. Hazelle has warned me, albeit jokingly, about his reputation with women, and though I don't like to admit it, I'm terrified that he'll leave me for a District girl, one he should logically be with. He's still dubious of my origins and my intentions. But one night, while I lie in his arms, comforted by his warmth and his kisses, absently running my fingers along the ragged, scarred skin of his back, he shivers and whispers that he loves me. It changes everything. I'm no longer afraid.

Someday, we will marry. Someday we will have children that bear the name of Hawthorne and the blood of Snow. They will have a traitor for a mother, a rebel for a father. They will have grandparents that lived and died in the Seam, grandparents who defied the Capitol and paid with their lives. They will be perfect.

I know that Grandfather would disapprove of my relationship, of my life. I don't care. This thought makes me smile. I will live the rest of my life in spite of Grandfather, and I will be happy.


	6. Foxface

**I just reloaded this chapter to fix a fairly obvious typo that I noticed while I was rereading this the other night. As you may notice if you've read this before, nothing else has changed. Please take the time to leave me a review and let me know what you're thinking. Also review with ideas for other characters that I could write on, provided they fit the criteria (possible in cannon, involving the relationship with a family member) because I would love to continue this, but I am really struggling to find other characters to write on.**

**Enjoy!**

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><p>In<em> the history of the Hunger Games there have been 73 victors.<em>

I recite this fact often, to reassure myself.

I try not to think about the fact that, in the history of the Hunger Games, there have been 1,776 players, because that is not a reassuring figure.

My brain does the math easily, though, even without a calculator.

_73 times 24 tributes a year, plus 24 for the Second Quarter Quell._

My brain works too well.

Sometimes, I think it would probably be better to simply _not know._

Statistically speaking, my odds aren't 1 in 24. This is a gross overstatement generally, and every year, the traits of the individual tributes must be factored in. For simplicity's sake, though, I can say with fair confidence that tributes coming from a 'Career District' have odds much higher—about 1 in 3—than those coming from any other District, especially an outlier like 11 or 12, where the odds are about 1 in 50. If you come from my District, 5, the odds are about 1 in 25.

Which is better than District 12, of course, but still not good.

I have heard others speak about being 'muddled,' or having their brains feel too full. I do not know this feeling. My head is crystal clear and very fast, always. Doing the statistical math took me no more than a few seconds, and then I promised myself that I wouldn't do it again, because the odds were certainly _not_ in my favor.

No matter how tempting it is to reconsider, now that I'm in the final 6 and my odds have drastically improved, even considering Cato's—1 in 2.138—and Clove's—1 in 2.84.

I think, perhaps, that I am the only person in the arena to know everybody's name.

Clove, Cato, myself, Thresh, Katniss, Peeta. This is who is left, arranged by District and by gender, because I like to keep things in my brain orderly.

I am almost certain that nobody knows my name, though I don't mind this. Flying under the radar has, so far, been a very good strategy.

And it's not their fault, really. Very few people are as observant as me. This is not rude, because this is a fact. I remember everything I see or hear with almost photographic accuracy.

I used to see Rue in the treetops occasionally, though we usually ignored one another. The trees are a very good place to be. I can see everything.

I can see how Clove's eyes often slide over to rest on Cato's face. He pretends not to notice, though when he stands guard, he usually does so within feet of her slumbering form. Once, he pulled her sleeping bag back up to cover her when she kicked it down. I note this, and find it both interesting and amusing. I also note the fact that Clove seems much less inclined to practice throwing knives now that Glimmer is dead.

If I camp out at the very edge of the forest, I can see Thresh's camp. He is the only one at ease enough to venture into the wheat fields, though he seems well fed because of it. When we were in training, I noted the strong muscles moving under his smooth, dark skin and was exhilarated and then embarrassed when he caught me staring and gave me a small, shy smile. When Rue's face appeared in the sky, I watched him cry, oblivious to sponsors, and respected him for it. Though I usually move frequently at night, flitting from tree to tree to evade potential threats, I stayed in the farthest tree that night, standing watch over his camp when he drifted off. He deserved that rest.

I can see Katniss' and Peeta's cave, if climb to the right height in the right tree.

I do not attack, though I could.

I am a waiter, not a hunter. They may all kill each other off, and I will simply wait and watch.

The disadvantage to my plan: there is not much food in the treetops, and now that the Career's food pyramid is gone, I am as hungry—hungrier—than they are. I will not die, though. I know the rule: 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. We have not even been in the arena for 3 weeks.

Watching is a good distraction, both from this gnawing hunger and unpleasant memories.

"_Well, why shouldn't the Districts refuse to send tributes? It's barbaric, this practice."_

"_Mother, please… There's a peacekeeper right there."_

"_People should hear this! They need to know it's wrong!"_

"_Stop, mother, they'll kill you, or worse!"_

"_What could be worse?"_

My mother is careless, I know this. She makes no effort to hide her distain for the Capitol, or its practices. When I was little, it was inspiring. It isn't that I disagree with her, or that I don't think that something should be done. But I am smarter than my mother, and I know not to flaunt these views.

"_They can't rig the Reaping, sweetheart, don't be silly. It's just a drawing. It's bad luck that you got chosen, that's all."_

"_You're the one protesting against the Capitol, can you be that naïve?"_

"_You're too suspicious."_

"_I thought you hated the Games!"_

"_I do! But I won't endanger your life by saying so now!"_

"_It's too late for that, can't you see?"_

"_You can come home from this. You're smarter than they are. You can win. 1 in 24, those odds could be much worse!"_

1 in 25, I had corrected. And they _could_ be worse, depending on who the other tributes were.

Not that it matters now.

I was always afraid of her carelessness, but I was afraid for her. Afraid that I would grow up motherless.

This is the one time that I have been wrong, for it is not her they have punished. It is me.

They will make her watch, but I will have to die.

I am smart enough to know that the Reaping was almost certainly rigged, for my odds of being drawn—1 in 1,513—were much better than many of those who had taken out tesserae.

I am smart enough to know how it was, or at least guess at it. The names in the ball were all mine, or else the escort was ordered to say my name no matter whose was drawn. Nobody sees the slips besides him, it would be easy enough.

These are the thoughts that make me wish I was stupid, or at least had merely normal intelligence.

Because maybe nobody else would know that they had been sentenced to death by their own mother.


	7. Rory

**Thank you all for the wonderful feedback I'm getting-when I get some time I may go back and re-edit some chapters, so anything definately helps.**

**Also, if there are any characters that you would like me to write a canon-compliant one-shot revolving around their relationship with their family for, I am definately open to suggestions.**

**I do not own the Hunger Games or anything associated with them.**

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><p>The atmosphere in our tiny room hasn't been this tense since the Games began, and that's saying something.<p>

Prim sits beside me, wide eyed and white knuckled.

Mrs. Everdeen has collapsed into my father's old chair and is staring unseeingly at the wall. Gale looks annoyed by this, but Gale is annoyed by almost everything these days. To give her credit, Mrs. Everdeen has been doing well since Katniss left, but Gale grumbles that they come over so often because then Mom can take responsibility for a while and Mrs. Everdeen can vanish again.

Mom is working in the kitchen, insisting that Posy help her so that she can miss as much of the Games as possible.

They are the only ones in the house not riveted on the television set.

"Gale," Vick asks without removing his eyes from the television, "Why did they change the rules?"

"Don't know," Gale replies shortly.

"But Gale, they've never—"

"I don't know, Vick!"

Gale has never shouted at our brother before. The room goes silent, and every eye in the room rests on him.

Gale ducks his head and looks at his hands.

Vick's eyes well up with tears.

For a moment, I think Gale might apologize, but he just looks back to the TV without saying a word.

I slide my eyes to Prim, still looking wide-eyed at Gale.

"You okay?" I ask her.

She doesn't speak, but she nods her head a fraction of an inch.

"Gale," my mother says, her head appearing from the kitchen, "Don't yell at your brother, please. Not today."

I can remember a time when my brother listened implicitly to our mother, a time as recent as last month when he respected her and threatened to deal with me himself if I ever didn't.

He doesn't even look at her now, doesn't even respond, and his fists, already held tight in his lap, clench a bit more.

She lingers in the doorway for a moment, looking as if she's tempted to march right through the door, take him by the ear like she used to, and give him a good dunking in her wash tank, but then there's a clatter from the kitchen.

"Oops," Posy says.

Mom gives Gale a glare and marches back into the kitchen.

Trumpets sound from the TV.

"Attention tributes!" Claudius Templesmith exclaims, his voice sounding tinny and strange over the set, "I would like to invite you all to a feast at the Cornucopia at dawn!"

Everyone in the room tenses.

The camera flashes to Katniss in the opening of her cave, waving his offer away. Gale relaxes, infinitesimally.

"Now hold on. Some of you may already be declining my invitation. But this is no ordinary feast. Each of you needs something desperately."

The camera flashes to each tribute: District 2 curled up in a sleeping bag together, their breath fogging in the frigid night air, the girl from 5 up in a tree not 20 feet from them, shivering, the immense boy from 11 huddled around his campfire. Katniss, a look of comprehension on her face.

Mom and Posy come in from the kitchen to watch.

"Each of you will find that something in a backpack, marked with your district number, at the Cornucopia at dawn. Think hard about refusing to show up. For some of you, this will be your last chance."

His words echo through the room.

"Damn!" Gale explodes.

"Gale!" My mother admonishes, but Gale ignores her. He looks ready to put another hole in the wall, to match the one he made last night when Katniss and Peeta kissed, but at the last moment, he draws his fist back.

"She's going to get killed for him!" Gale finishes, "Damn it!"

Mrs. Everdeen doesn't even stir. Prim is trembling.

"What is 'damn'?" Posy asks, her voice ringing from the silent room.

"Never mind," Mom says quickly.

Posy crosses to Gale and pulls on his sleeve. "Gale? What does…"

"She told you never mind!" Gale snaps.

Posy bursts into tears.

She sways for a moment, looking confused, for she usually runs to Gale when she's upset, and then holds her arms out to me.

"It's okay, Pose," I say, pulling her into my lap, "He didn't mean it."

Gale's eyes flash, as if to disagree, but he must feel guilty for making Posy cry, for he doesn't say anything more.

"Is she really going to die?" Vick asks quietly.

"Of course not," I lie, "We're all rooting for her."

"What, you don't think there're people in other Districts rooting, too?" Gale says harshly. "You don't think that 2 wants Cato and Clove home, or that 11's grandmother is rooting for him, too?"

Prim starts to cry, and I free an arm from Posy to slip it around her shoulders. I glare at Gale. At the rate he's going, the whole room will be in tears before the end of the night.

"Is that what you told her before she left?" I ask. "'You're going to die, let's face it, so you might as well not even try'?"

"Of course not!" He says.

"Katniss is going to win," Mrs. Everdeen says suddenly, but her voice is hollow and lifeless, as if she has simply memorized the right words to say.

"Of course she is," I says quickly. Gale looks away, his jaw clenched.

He doesn't fool me. I know that he wants Katniss to come home more than anything. I think he's trying to prepare himself for the probability of her death, so it's not so painful when—if—it comes.

"Sit down, Gale," My mother says quietly, and for the first time all night, he listens to her. "Katniss can take care of herself." She disappears again into the kitchen.

Vick looks at me, and I shoot him what I hope is a reassuring grin.

I remember suddenly the games from two years ago, when the boy was an acquaintance of Gale's. He miraculously survived until the third day, when he was ambushed by the career pack. I remember that day, when we could see the careers move steadily closer to him, how I looked over at Gale and he shot me the same reassuring grin, and then took Rory and me out to play in the meadow.

Gale has always held our family together, feeding us, protecting us, being both brother and father to Vick, Posy, and me. He has always been our steadiness.

But now, Posy snuggles in my arms and Vick looks to me for reassurance.

I wonder when I became the anchor of our family, when Gale started to drift away.

I miss my big brother.


	8. Clove

**Clove has always really fascinated me as a character, and so this was a really interesting chapter for me to write.**

**Again, if there are any characters that you would like me to write a story for, please let me know. I'm beginning to run out of ideas. Also, if you like or dislike these stories, please tell me so and why. This really helps me in writing these.**

**I do not own any aspect of the Hunger Games.**

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><p>Dying is the hardest thing I have ever done.<p>

Not physically speaking, of course. _When a vital system becomes irreparably damaged, a human being dies._ I know this, because I know how to kill.

I don't know how to die. I have never been trained or prepared for this. Somewhere in between the survival training and the killing lessons, someone should have taught me _how to die_.

My brain, the vital system that has become irreparably damaged, is both very fuzzy and remarkably clear. It's as if I can no longer see the present, but I am looking into the past.

I've heard that, when you die, you see your life unroll in front of you. This is wrong. The images aren't neatly collected and chronologically ordered. They are a mess of random, unconnected memories, spilling before me for no reason at all.

"Clove!"

The sound of my own name brings so many memories.

Every person who I have ever heard say it to me seems to be saying it at once now.

Mother, Cato, Caesar, our trainer, my brother.

The word echoes through my head, trying to find space to stay and grow. It cannot, there are other memories in that space now.

It resounds once, twice, and is gone, and almost immediately I forget who called it or why.

"Clove!" He shouts again, and things are a little clearer. It is Cato. He is in pain. Why is he in pain? I am in pain. I dislike pain. I should end the pain. No pain. The absence of pain is numbness, or is it happiness? I cannot remember, but happiness is knives. Knives. Pain. Knives cause pain, and knives end pain. I want no pain, therefore, I want a knife. I have knives. They are near me, always. They are around me. I wear knives.

I reach for a knife, and my hand barely stirs. Why won't my body work?

Something falls heavily to the ground beside me, and I cringe without moving an inch.

"Clove," he says, close to my ear, begging now.

Clove is my name. I have heard it since birth, on the lips of my mother and brother. I am hearing it now. I heard it weeks ago, around a campfire.

_My mother used to put cloves in hot milk when I was a child, _Marvel had said conversationally.

Marvel is a silly name, and I want to laugh, to giggle, but there is too much pain and I don't know how to giggle. Glimmer could giggle. Glimmer is also a very silly name. But no, I am at this campfire now, the memory is pushing hard, this one won't slip away from me, so I cling to it with everything.

_Small, dark, spiky things, _Marvel had continued, _a little sweet and a little spicy. The resemblance is astounding._

_Hot milk? _Glimmer scoffed, shooting her eyes over to Cato to make sure he knew that she didn't drink hot milk, like a baby. But her eyes were soft and a little longing. She missed hot milk.

I had only scoffed. Let Marvel think I had had this too, millions of times. Let him think that I had heard this comparison so many times that it had lost all impact. He wouldn't know that we could barely afford milk, much less wood to heat it with or spices to go in it.

_Shut the hell up, 1._ Cato had snapped. He was talking to both of them, but Glimmer thought he wasn't. Now I can't remember why he said this. Did he dislike Marvel, or did he dislike Marvel teasing me?

_It also means to split open, like with a knife,_ I had remarked, flipping a knife easily away from me, missing his head intentionally my mere inches and pinning a falling leaf to the tree trunk behind me. I had smirked, Cato had laughed.

The memory slips away, no matter how hard I try to hold onto it, but I remember a knife, and I reach again, trying to find one, trying to end the pain.

He misunderstands, and takes my hand instead, squeezing it.

"You're fine," he says in my ear.

My brother used to say this to me, when I got hurt, no matter how badly. Once, I had an ax branching from one arm and a spear in my thigh. "You're fine," he said firmly as he marched me to the hospital.

I was fine.

I miss him.

I hate him.

He went to the games two years ago, and he came back. He trained me hard. But he never told me how it felt in here, the constant paranoia and the lingering fear. He didn't tell me how it would change me, being here. I wish he had told me. I wish I could see him, speak to him now.

"You'll be just fine, just stay with me," Cato begs.

I can't see his face, because his face is _now_ and not _then_, and _now_ is too painful to linger in. I can see his face _then, _when _then_ was 4 years ago, yesterday, in the light of the campfire a week ago. He has a handsome face, and I long to touch it, but my hand only stirs feebly when I lift it. He takes it, too, holding both of my hands in one of his and touching the good side of my head with his other one, stroking my face and hair.

My brother stroked my hair, sometimes, when I had a nightmare. Mother didn't, but he told me it was because she couldn't understand what it was like there, she hadn't trained. He understood, and he stroked my hair.

If Cato strokes my hair, he must understand.

I feel like I want to cry now, and I give myself permission for the first time in years. There is pain and blood and I just want to go somewhere clean and warm and happy. The traitorous tears don't come. My body won't betray me in my last moments, even if my fuzzy mind will.

"Stay," Cato says again, "You're just fine."

He's a very bad liar.

I try to scoff, but it comes out as a helpless little whimper. He squeezes my hands again.

I can make sound, which I didn't know until now. I open my mouth to say something, and the word that comes out is the last one I spoke, as if my mouth hasn't forgotten it even though my brain has. "Cato…" I whisper, my voice breaking. The throbbing pain in my skull, my leg, my upper arm dim for just a moment when faced with the pain in my throat, dry and scratchy from shouting for him.

And now he is here.

"Yes?" He asks, listening desperately for other words.

I don't want to close my eyes, because I know that I won't open them again, but they are heavy with fear and longing and everything I have ever felt in my life, which has felt long but has been very short.

I close my eyes and simply feel, for the first time in a long time. I feel the grass under me, and my wounds, so clearly fatal. I feel his soft hand, surprisingly gentle along my face and in my sun-warmed hair, and I feel his warm breath on my cheek.

I have his attention now, but I don't know what to say. Do I beg him to kill me? Do I tell him goodbye? The person I most want to say goodbye to isn't here, he's watching this on television somewhere. He didn't mentor this year, not with me here, but I want to make him proud.

"Don't let them," I start to say, but my voice dies in my throat. _Don't let them send more children here, _I was going to say, or _Don't let them forget me, _or maybe _Don't let them mourn for me. _I can't remember.

I swallow hard. All I can see is darkness.

"You have to," I try again, but again, my voice dies. _You have to teach them how to die. You have to remember me. You have to stay alive._

"Clove? You'll be fine, just… Clove? Clove?"

His voice fades, and I can hear my pulse in my head. The dark, and this new absence of real sound overwhelms me, and I am afraid.

I wrench my eyes open with the last bit of strength I have. Pitiful. I am strong, I am unbeatable. My brother taught me this. I hope he can forgive me for this great failing. I hope he can forgive my fear. All I ever wanted was to make him proud.

The sun is blinding overhead. I'll miss this sun. Cato moves closer to me, inches away, and his head blocks the light, giving him a golden halo. This is a funny thought. Angel Cato and dying Clove. Angels, coming for me. This is not right. Angels shouldn't come for me, I am not bound for angels. What are angels? Angels are God, and there is no God. Not here, not ever. No God, no devil. Just blackness.

"I don't want," I whisper, but my voice fails me again. _I don't want to die. I don't want you to leave me, ever. I don't want you to remember me like this._

"I know," Cato says, though he can't. He lifts my head gently, and puts it in his lap. He smells like fear and victory, and a little bit of home.

I think he is smiling at me.

I think I smile back.

"I'll win," he assures me. "I'll win for you. I'll win for us."

I think I nod.

_When you get back,_ I tell him, but my lips won't move anymore. The ground spins, though I am lying down, reaching up for me. His face looms closer and then farther.

He smiles again, a beautiful smile filled with ugly hatred. I have smiled like this, so many times, but I have never had to hide the tears in my eyes, like he must now.

He strokes my hair, and my eyes flutter shut again. My heart still beats, though I don't know how, louder than ever in my ears. A reassuring sound to die to. His hand is a steady pressure on my head. A reassuring touch to die to. He has, I remember, a younger sister.

_Be the brother to her that mine was to me. Be strong, be safe. Be better than him. Never let her come near this toxic place. Know that she'll miss you, always, when she goes. _

He is everything to me in this moment, every comfort that ever was, every warm touch I've ever had. There hasn't been many, but they're all here now.

_When you get back, Cato, tell them. Tell them that they must teach us how to die._

I can't hear my heart beat.


	9. Rhye

**This is, admittedly, another one of the more far-fetched chapters, again because we know almost nothing about this character from the books. I started writing this at about Christmas, got halfway done, and then went back to school and quite honestly forgot all about it. Then, when I rediscovered it last night, I had totally forgotten what direction I had originally intended it to go in, so I hope it doesn't seem incongruous, because I basically invented a new ending for it.**

**This chapter was strangely cathartic to write, and I hope you all enjoy it.**

**I'm still willing to write more pieces for this collection, especially since I have much more time to write in the summer, but I'm running out of characters, so if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.**

**As always, anything you already recognize belongs to Suzanne Collins, and I own no part of it. There is a tiny fraction of an Appalachian folk song in it, too, but I don't think that's copyrighted. Just in case... that's not mine, either. **

**Shoot me a review, I'd love to hear what you think!**

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><p>All through the Seam, people hear her songs.<p>

"Just like your mother," Dad says fondly when she passes by. Then he gives me a significant look, and I busy myself with another task.

It's a stupid Mellark weakness, to fall hopelessly in love with a girl, a girl you could never hope to have. Although, my father had her, of course. Eventually.

Falling stupidly in love is as much a part of being a Mellark as being a baker is, and I am both, for better or for worse. Most days, it feels like for worse.

I don't know when I stopped baking and started _being a baker_. For a couple of years now, I've been a baker, but I don't know when, or how, it happened. Gradually, I suppose. I used to talk to Ivy about these things, but that was before she went to live in 4, to help Grandma at the hospital there.

"Don't be stupid, Rhye," she would say, "Mellarks are always bakers."

I usually didn't point out that she was a Mellark every bit as much as I was, and she was a healer, thank you very much. But even when I did, she just pointed out that "Everdeen women are healers."

It has always been very clearly understood that, while I am a Mellark to the bone, my elder sister is thought of by almost everybody in 12, even my parents, as an Everdeen.

Maybe it's the simple fact that she is a girl, like my mother (the Everdeen) while I am a boy, like my father (the Mellark). Maybe, with her long dark hair and aloof (or annoyed) expression, she looks almost precisely as my mother did at her age, while I quite clearly resemble my father. Maybe it's just that I inherited all of the stupid Mellark proclivities, like falling hopelessly in love with precisely the _wrong_ person, and she escaped all of them, instead inheriting all of the superior Everdeen traits, like _making_ people fall hopelessly in love with you.

She's only been gone 3 months, but as my father joked, 'hearts broke all over 12 when she left.' And I have no doubt that, wherever she is, she has some poor boy tied up in knots for her already.

I'm so consumed in my thoughts that I almost let the bread burn. And of course, my parents wouldn't believe that that was her fault, either, even though I take a moment to be petty and pretend that it _is_ Ivy's fault, since I was thinking about her.

The bell on the door jingles, and my friend Ainsley comes in.

"Hey, Mellark. My mom wants a loaf of sourdough."

"Sure," I say, turning to get it, "How're things?"

"Eh," he says, "Can't complain. I talked to Serena in history and math today."

"And?"

"And nothing, we just talked. Do you think I should ask her out?"

I want to tell him that I have no experience with girls, only one girl, and that experience consists of nervously tying her wheat bread up when she comes in, but I know since I have an older sister (who is Ivy Mellark) that he thinks I know everything about girls. Besides, I see the little glances Serena always throws him—I sit right behind her in Earth Sciences.

"Sure," I say instead, handing him the bread, "I think she'd like that."

"Cool," Ainsley says, handing over the payment and grinning, "Thanks, Rhye. I owe you."

And then a voice, lovely and soaring, rises outside the barely open door, and I think I might just drop the money.

"You okay?" Ainsley asks, worried.

My crush on (or obsession with, as Ivy says) Petra Dunn is a well kept secret, and so I just say, "Sure, sorry. Forgot I was supposed to fix the door, it doesn't close all of the way," and though Ainsley gives me a strange look, he lets it slide.

We both stop to listen to her song for a moment. It's hard not to. She's got a beautiful, haunting voice, and she sings often. I know others think it's weird, or even annoying, but I love listening when she passes by the bakery on her way to town, usually holding her brother, Orem, by the wrist. I never know if she's singing to him, or to the town, or just for the sake of making music, but I also don't care. A lot of the songs she sings are ones I've heard my mother sing, folk songs from 12 and some other Districts, but I've never hear the one she's singing today, about a miner's daughter.

_Daddy, don't go to the mines today_

_For dreams so often come true_

_There's something a-going to happen today_

_Please, daddy, don't go to the mines_

"That's morbid," Ainsley says, "Singing about mines exploding in 12. Well, I'd better get home. Talk to you later."

He leaves, bell jangling, and Petra's song swells with the opening of the door and then falls again as the door swings almost shut. I really was supposed to fix that door last week.

For a moment, I consider going to the window to watch her walk by, but just a second later the door opens and she actually comes in, Orem in her wake, and I'm glad I'm behind the counter instead of at the window, which would be strange.

The last bars of her song die on her lips, and she gives me a blinding smile. "Hello, Rhye," she says.

"Hey," I say, proud of myself for getting the single syllable out without incident. And then, feeling brave, I add, "How's it going, Petra?"

My father always says that people like to hear their own names, and she smiles again, so maybe it's true.

"Oh, fine," she says, "Mother's sick, and all she wants is toast. I've come to get another loaf of wheat bread."

Our wheat bread is the cheapest, and it's good, but our soft, white bread makes better toast, or at least I think so. I almost offer to give her a loaf at the same price, but she probably wouldn't take it. People in 12 aren't impoverished anymore, at least not most of them, but they're still poor.

"Petra," I say instead, "I'm so sorry, but Greasy Sae asked me this morning to set aside a loaf of wheat for Haymitch, and I promised her she could pick it up later."

Petra's smile fades as she looks at the only remaining loaf of wheat bread left on the shelves.

"Oh," she says, "Well—"

"But I hate to disappoint you," I say, trying not to put too fine a point on the word _you_, "So how about if I give you a loaf of white, instead?"

She looks a little uncomfortable, unwilling to admit she only has enough money to buy the wheat.

"And since it's my fault that you can't have the one you want, you can have it at the same price as usual."

"Well…" She hesitates, "That would be wonderful, Rhye. Are you sure? I don't want to impose…"

"Of course!" I say, wrapping the bread up. Dad may not be happy, but he'll understand.

"Petra," Orem suddenly whines from behind her, "Can we go home now?"

"In a minute, Ore," she says, throwing me an apologetic look, "I have to pay Rhye."

"How's school, Orem?" I ask, as I make change. "Learn anything?" I let my hand drift promisingly towards the cookie tray.

"We did triangles today!" He says hurriedly, and gives me a hopeful look. Petra and Orem have the same chestnut, curling hair and the same sea green eyes—at a distance they look almost like other Seam children, but the coloring's just not quite right. I think their mother's from 4.

"And?" I say.

"And… and… the long side is the hypo-hypa-hypotenuse!"

"Cool!" I say, and hand him a pink-frosted cookie.

"Rhye…" Petra sighs, but she can't help herself and she grins. "You really shouldn't. I owe you. If you need a favor sometime…"

_Go out with me?_ I want to ask, but I smile instead. "Sure. I'll collect." I hope my smile looks dashing, but it probably just looks 'cute.'

She starts to say something else, but then the door flies open and we both turn to see Heath Stone stalk into the bakery.

"Wheat, please," He says with no prelude. Heath, like most seam boys, is dark and surly, but we have the same grey eyes. I try not to let him intimidate me. He's taller than I am, but leaner, and I'm strong, though I don't know that it matters much, since I doubt we'll be fist fighting in the bakery.

I go to get it for him, but Petra says, "They're all out. But they're selling the white at the same price!"

I grimace. Selling two loaves on a discount? Great. But I grab the white bread anyways.

"Really?" Heath says suspiciously.

"Sure," I say, "Saving it for Haymitch. Sorry."

He shrugs. We both know that white bread is a treat, but he doesn't thank me, or even say anything.

I think he resents me, many people do. The son of two well-known and cherished celebrities, heroes of the revolution and darlings of Panem. How could I not have a dream life?

But they've never lived with my parents, they've never seen their reality. My parents deserve pity, but they don't want it. The outsiders don't know what it's like growing up in my house—the night terrors that grip my mother, my father's rare but frightening bouts of rage. They don't know that, while my mother surely loves us, she's strangely disconnected from everybody but my father, that my father, who finds solace here in the bakery, cannot understand that I want something else, cannot help me find something else, because I, myself, don't know what it is that I want.

Families are never as they seem, on the surface.

Sometimes, I think that my sister was the only one who understood me. She's certainly the only other one who knows what it is to be in our household, on the bad days and the good, excluded by our youth from our parent's problems but feeing the repercussions of the past nonetheless.

But Ivy, who retains our father's warm strength with our mother's steel and could and did empathize with me, still thought I was silly for throwing away what I have. She's happy healing, in 4, which is what an Everdeen woman does.

Most days, I think that I just got our father's insecurities and our mother's shyness, though my mother once told me that I have his talent for words.

If it were Ivy standing here, Heath wouldn't resent her, and not just because he would want her. Maybe it's her dark hair, though she has town-blue eyes, maybe it's her classification as an 'Everdeen woman,' but she's considered Seam by many, someone who can understand the plight of the poor, who doesn't pity them or stuff charity down their throats, who can relate to them.

I am a town boy, through and through. Maybe it's the blond hair, or that fact that I work in the bakery while she was out helping people all over 12, I don't know.

I do know that Heath is glaring at me, even though I'm feeding him the good bread for practically free, even though I never did a thing to him besides try to be his friend in lower school. And see how that turned out.

I shove the parcel at him, and he doesn't even thank me, he just nods, gruffly, and hands over his coins.

"Say, Petra, I have some extra venison. Do you think your mother would want it?" He asks, as I'm ringing up the sale.

"Probably. I can come and pick it up on my way home? We have to stop by the cobblers, first."

I can't help but notice that, though Heath seems to be flirting with her (although what he classifies as flirting is deigning to talk to a girl), Petra is business like. She doesn't even smile, and she did at me, at least twice. The thought gives me a ray of hope, at least until I remember that I'm totally wrong for Petra in every way, while Heath seems to be her dream match: they're both Seam, he's a ruggedly handsome provider while I'm only a 'cute' (on a good day) baker's boy. Even his name sounds like a hearth, like a sound house and a warm fire, somewhere to be safe and protected, somewhere to curl up on a winter's day. I got named after a stupid loaf of bread.

My sister got, along with everything else, the good name, like my mother. Though ivy isn't useful, not in the same way katniss is, a plant name is as much of an Everdeen trait as healing or a strange sort of magnetism. Primrose, Katniss. Ivy. I, like my father, am named after a _baked good._ They didn't even do me the common courtesy of spelling it correctly.

I'm so busy glowering at an innocent tray of freshly frosted cookies that I don't hear Petra and Heath stop talking, though they must, because he storms out of the bakery in a swirl of fresh air, as though he is being accepted back into his element.

"Rhye?" Petra says in a soft voice. I immediately try to arrange my face to into a less hostile expression. Unlike Ivy, I don't wear a glare well. When she's angry, her stare can liquefy the very bones of the unfortunate soul who has enraged her. I would know, I've been on the receiving end of her 'looks' often enough. When I try to glare back, she just laughs.

"Yeah?" I say guiltily, for I'm kicking myself for fixating on my _sister_ when Petra is actually holding a conversation with me for once. I briefly fantasize about what might follow this opening. _You look very nice today. Do you want to go out sometime? I wish I saw more of you._ I stop myself, before I start hyperventilating or doing something equally embarrassing.

"How's your sister?" She says, instead.

I wonder if she can hear my teeth grinding together.

For a brief moment, I imagine screaming at her like I've wanted to scream at so many people who have asked the same question of me, always _how's your sister? _Or _how's your mother?_ Or _how's our father?_

But never _how are you?_

_Why do you only care about her?_ I scream in my head. _Why does everyone only ever ask about Ivy? Why does Ivy matter more? When people talk about our family, do they say "Oh, yes, the Mellarks. Katniss and Peeta, of course, and their daughter, Ivy. Wait, don't they have a son, too? Ron, or something like that?" That's the way I imagine that conversation going in my head, Petra. And it's awful. It's awful to know that no matter how well I do at whatever I do, I'll always be the 'other' Mellark. It's awful that I'm dying a little, being here every day, doing nothing with my life at a job I don't even like, while Ivy's off earning acclaim and the hearts of every man in 4 just by breathing, as if that's some kind of miracle, while I'll be stuck here forever, until I can find some poor girl that will tolerate me enough to bear me a few more poor children to work in this bakery until we all die._

But self-pity has never been a family trait, on either side, and angry outbursts are strictly Everdeen territory (for which, of course, I do not apply). Mellark men are polite.

So I paste on a smile, and say, "She's great. You know Ivy, winning people over wherever she goes!" _Which is weird, _I almost say, _because she's always so damned sullen._ I hope I don't sound too bitter, but Petra cocks her head as if examining me more carefully.

"Are you alright?" She says finally, after a long, awkward pause.

And there it is. The question I always dream of someone asking me, _me,_ and I have no reply.

"I'm f-fine," I stutter, "Why do you ask?"

She tilts her head just a fraction more. "You seem… restless. Or unhappy."

"I'm fine!" I force again, throwing her another dazzling (yeah, right) smile for effect.

"Rhye," she says, "Nobody said you always have to be perfect."

I almost laugh out loud. _Perfect? Me? The family failure?_

"Believe me, I'm far from perfect," I say instead.

"You seem sort of perfect," Petra says, still looking as if I'm a very interesting specimen she's seeing for the first time. It's a little exhilarating, because it's the first time she's ever really paid attention to me, but also a little alarming, because I get the feeling she doesn't like what she sees. "You have perfect grades, you're popular, you're always happy, and when you're not in school, you're here, being _the _Mellark in 'Mellark Family Bakery.'"

Her praise, if it can even be called that, should thrill me. Instead, it seems to pile up on me, slumping my shoulders and making my eyes prickle hotly.

"Petra," I say, a little thickly, much to my embarrassment, "You have no idea."

"About what?" She asks. She sounds genuinely interested in what I have to say, and having someone listen for the first time in a long time is just enough that before I can realize what I'm doing and stop myself, my mouth is open and I'm talking, saying things I've never said out loud before.

"Perfect? _Perfect?_ Of all the people in my family, I'm not the perfect one. I'm not the prettiest one, or the smartest one, or the nicest one. In my family, I'm practically the black sheep. You want perfect, you have Ivy, who doesn't even _try_ to get along with anybody and is still the most popular girl in the district, even after she's gone. I pass half a dozen boys each day who I _know_ are still in love with my sister. Or my father, the revolutionary hero, and he doesn't even _like_ it. All he wants to do is bake and paint. And even after everything, after all he's gone through, he's still the most genuine, caring person that I've ever known. And I'm expected to be just like him, only I don't know _how_, because even if I try all of my life, I will never be as genuinely _nice_ as my father. There's nothing to say about my mother. She's the Mockingjay. That's quite the family legacy. Only sometimes, it's like she's not even my family, not even my mother. Sometimes, it's like she doesn't even see me, and it's worse since Ivy left."

I take a deep breath, intending to stop, embarrassed for myself, but Petra is staring at me with wide, concerned eyes, and I just _can't_.

"And there's me. The grades? The popularity? Ivy did it first. The politeness? It's all my father. Sometimes I wonder if my mother even _is _my mother, because I certainly didn't inherit any of her good traits. I have _nothing_ that isn't my family's. I work in my father's bakery, doing his job. There is nowhere in this district where I fit in. The people in the Seam don't trust me, because I look like a townie. The people in town don't think I'm fully one of theirs. And—"

I'm about to come to some jaw dropping conclusion. I don't know what, because I'm pretty much just making this all up as I go, but I know it's going to be big.

And then the door opens again. And of all the people in this barren, Godless district who could walk through the door, my father does.

"Hello, Rhye," he says, with all his usual genuine nicety. "Petra," he says, nodding at her, "Orem."

Petra quietly greets him, never taking her wide eyes off of me, and Orem, who had been listening to my tirade open mouthed with half a cookie in his hand quickly shoves the rest in his mouth and squeaks out his own hello.

"Thank you for the bread, Mr. Mellark," Petra says, after a tense moment. "It's so nice of you to sell us the white bread at a discount price. My mother will be so pleased."

Dad, to his credit, doesn't show any more surprise than quickly cutting his eyes at me. "Sure," he says easily, coming behind the counter to stand with me, "I hope she feels better soon."

Because even without asking, my father knew that she wasn't feeling well. The most popular man in the district.

I feel another stab of senseless rage, feel my cheeks flush. I look at the counter, down at all the pastries my father so lovingly prepares each morning, rising with the sun, as if nothing could make him happier than helping to feed people, like there is nothing more important to him than the blinding smile on a dirty, malnourished child's face when he hands them a cookie for telling him what happened at school that day.

And knowing that I only have one job to perform, one single, solitary job, and I will never do even _that _half as well as my father does only makes me angrier.

"Rhye?" My father says, clapping a warm hand gently on my shoulder and looking at me with genuine concern.

All my rage instantly turns to shame. Who am I to begrudge my parents anything, when they worked so hard, went through so much, risked life and limb (literally, in the case of my father's oft-mourned missing leg) to overthrow the Capitol and allow us to lead this sort of life? Who did it all so that I would never fear the reaping? So that Ivy _could_ move to 4 and have the life she wanted? And who am I to hate my sister, who is admittedly, even with all this distance, my closest friend? When I know that she doesn't try for attention, doesn't invite it, has never reveled in her accidental popularity?

"Yeah, dad," I say, a little huskily.

I feel so ashamed, so lost and confused. I can't look Petra in the eye. I can't look my father in the eye. I want to bury my face in the front of the crisp, white apron he's tied on, to wrap my arms around his sturdy, unwavering body and feel his own arms around me, warm and strong. I want to inhale the scent of bread that clings to him, warm and comforting and smelling like home. I want to feel like a child again, sheltered in his arms, knowing that nothing and no one can hurt me when my strong father is there to protect me.

I don't, even when he squeezes my shoulder and lingers a moment, unaware of how much I want to return to the comfort and safety he's always provided for me, just by existing, never taking anything for himself.

He doesn't finish his question. He lifts his hand and turns to busy himself with something else, and I lift my eyes to Petra, feeling as though I would rather die.

She blinks once at me, cuts her eyes over to my father's back, and then slowly turns.

"Well…" She says hesitantly, "I guess I'll see you tomorrow in school, Rhye."

She collects her brother and throws a final look over her shoulder at me.

The door closes behind her.

"Dad," I say suddernly, "I'll be right back."

And I rush out of the bakery, leaving him openmouthed behind me.

"Petra!" I call, though between balancing a loaf of bread and her squirming brother, she's only made it a few feet.

"Look," I say, "I'm so sorry. For what I said. It was childish and silly, and I hope you don't think badly of me."

"I don't think it was childish." She says, quite straightforwardly.

"And please, don't tell—you don't?"

"No." She says, and she even smiles a bit. "Rhye, it was refreshing. You were always so intimidating before, like no one could ever live up to you. I like you much better now." She smiles at me, and she's standing so close that I can see a small dimple at the left corner of her mouth. "Besides," she says, "With a family like yours, who could blame you?"

She turns to go again, and I watch her go. At the end of the street, before they turn, she looks back. "I'll see you in school, Rhye."

I hear her song float back to me on the breeze.


End file.
